Grp Records
1997
The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings
About This Album
Unlike the knotty difficulties in trying to untie the various knots in the Classic Quartet box of Impulse recordings, the Vanguard sessions represent something else in the canon of John Coltrane's work. In 1961, Coltrane was still experimenting with his quartet format and trying to work in the proper coloration of voicings needed to give his music the proper force and expression he pictured it to have. Something further than Giant Steps and My Favorite Things, but nonetheless shaped and textured by them. To try and discuss the music contained on these four CDs -- to tell something about it that might in some way reveal it to you -- would be completely stupid. What's more important is that the box itself exists and brings together most of the disparate pieces of a particularly strange puzzle, but not all. The music contained on these CDs represents tunes that were recorded for the eventual purpose of release on November 1-3 and November 5, 1961. The quartet does appear here -- Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and Jimmy Garrison -- but there is also the addition of Eric Dolphy, since it was a quintet for these dates at the very least, an oud player on some tracks named Ahmed Abdul-Malik, and Roy Haynes occasionally sitting in on drums as well as Reggie Workman alternating in the bass chair.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1,2,3 and 4)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Disc 2 (try tracks 1,2 and 3)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Disc 3 (try tracks 1,2,3 and 4)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Disc 4 (try tracks 1,2 and 3)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

 
report abuse