John Coltrane: Blue Train (blue vinyl) [BLUE NOTE / EMI]

Why you'll love it

This blue vinyl edition joins the Blue Note Essential Vinyl Series for Coltrane's centennial. Blue Train went gold, and Coltrane himself called it his favourite of his own albums in a 1960 interview.

This edition

• Blue vinyl
• Blue Note Essential Vinyl Series
• Coltrane centennial edition

About the album

In 1957 John Coltrane spent his nights at the Five Spot playing in Thelonious Monk's quartet, and on September 15 he found time to drive out to Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. It was his one session as leader for Blue Note, and the label even paid the band to rehearse first, a rare luxury at the time. Van Gelder engineered, as he did for so many of the label's classics.

Coltrane wrote four of the five tunes, which was unusual in the 1950s, and he brought a front line of Lee Morgan on trumpet and Curtis Fuller on trombone, with Kenny Drew on piano and his Miles Davis bandmates Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones keeping time. The title track opens with that unforgettable horn theme, "Moment's Notice" twists through tricky changes, "Locomotion" is a hard-charging blues, "I'm Old Fashioned" is a lovely ballad, and "Lazy Bird" nods to Tadd Dameron's "Lady Bird." His solos already lean toward the dense, vertical, arpeggiated lines that became his signature.

Blue Note's reissue producer Michael Cuscuna called it Coltrane's first real mature statement, and Giant Steps was just around the corner. The trane, as it were, was leaving the station.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note, a reissue of the 1958 album.