John Coltrane: John Coltrane With The Red Garland Trio (Original Jazz Classics series, 180g) [CONCORD JAZZ INC.]

Why you'll love it

This Original Jazz Classics edition has new all-analogue mastering by Cohearent Audio from the original tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI in a tip-on jacket with obi. It marks Coltrane's centennial, with Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor alongside him.

This edition

• Original Jazz Classics series
• 180g vinyl
• All-analogue mastering from the original tapes
• Pressed at RTI
• Tip-on jacket with obi
• Mono

About the album

Before the sheets of sound and the spiritual epics, John Coltrane spent the late 1950s turning up at Prestige sessions and getting better at a startling rate. This one put him in front of the Red Garland Trio, Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Taylor on drums, a rhythm section that knew exactly how to give a saxophonist room and then push him through it. It's a relaxed, blowing session rather than a grand statement, and that's precisely its charm: four musicians at ease with each other, playing standards and blues the way they might on a good night in a club.

The long title track, "Traneing In," is an easy, swinging blues that lets everyone stretch, with Garland's block chords and Chambers' walking lines underneath Coltrane's restless runs. "Bass Blues" puts Chambers in the spotlight, the ballads "Slow Dance" and "You Leave Me Breathless" show off Coltrane's tender, burnished tone, and "Soft Lights and Sweet Music" closes the album at a gallop.

Prestige gave the album a second life in 1961 under the title Traneing In, which is how plenty of listeners still know it. Same five tunes, same four players, two names on the spine. So if you've been hunting for both titles, good news: you can stop.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Prestige / Craft Recordings (cat# CR00947), a reissue of the 1958 album.