John Coltrane: Ballads (Acoustic Sounds Series) [IMPULSE]

Why you'll love it

This Acoustic Sounds Series edition is remastered on 180g vinyl in a gatefold jacket. Ballads took the Grammy Hall of Fame award in 2008, and it's the gentlest way into the classic Coltrane quartet.

This edition

• Acoustic Sounds Series
• Remastered
• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Stereo

About the album

The same year Coltrane was stretching modal jazz to its limits on stage, he went into Rudy Van Gelder's studio and played eight standards about as tenderly as a tenor saxophone has ever played anything. According to critic Gene Lees, the quartet turned up with music-store sheet music, talked each tune through, rehearsed for half an hour and then recorded it.

McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones play with real restraint, Reggie Workman sits in on bass for one track, and Bob Thiele produced for Impulse!. "Say It (Over and Over Again)" sets the mood, "You Don't Know What Love Is" aches, "What's New" and "Nancy (With the Laughing Face)" glow, and "All or Nothing at All" picks up a little Latin swing. Rudy Van Gelder's engineering puts Coltrane's tone right in the room with you, round and unhurried, which is exactly what an Acoustic Sounds pressing is built to show off.

Every piece but "All or Nothing at All" went down in a single take. Some of us need three attempts at a decent cup of tea, so we try not to think about that too much.

Also at Kops: more John Coltrane on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Impulse! / Verve (cat# B0032078-01), a reissue of the 1963 album.