The album was recorded inwards the midst of Coltrane's residency at the Five Spot every bit a fellow member of the Thelonious Monk quartet. The personnel include Coltrane's Miles Davis bandmates, Paul Chambers on bass together with Philly Joe Jones on drums, both of whom had worked before with pianist Kenny Drew. Both trumpeter Lee Morgan together with trombonist Curtis Fuller were up-and-coming jazz musicians, together with both would last members of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, working together on several of Blakey's albums.
All of the compositions were written past times Coltrane, with the exception of the touchstone "I'm Old Fashioned". The championship rails is a long, rhythmically variegated blues with a sentimental [quasi minor; inwards fact based on major chords with apartment tenth, or raised ninth] topic that gradually shows the major fundamental during Coltrane's offset chorus. "Locomotion" is also a blues riff tune, inwards forty-four-bar form. During a 1960 interview, Coltrane described Blue Train every bit his favorite album of his ain upwardly to that point.
Although never formally signed, an oral understanding betwixt John Coltrane together with Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion was indeed honored on Blue Train -- Coltrane's only collection of sides every bit a principal artist for the venerable label. The disc is packed venture with sonic prove of Coltrane's innate leadership abilities. He non only addresses the tunes at hand, but also simultaneously reinvents himself every bit a multifaceted interpreter of both difficult bop every bit good every bit sensitive balladry -- touching upon all forms inwards between. The personnel on Blue Train is arguably every bit impressive every bit what they're playing. Joining Coltrane (tenor sax) are Lee Morgan (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Kenny Drew (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), together with Philly Joe Jones (drums). The triple horn arrangements contain an additional sonic density that remains a trademark unique to both this band together with album. Of particular Federal Reserve annotation is Fuller's even-toned trombone, which bops throughout the championship rails every bit good every bit the frenetic "Moments Notice." Other solos include Paul Chambers' subtly understated riffs on "Blue Train" every bit good every bit the high set out energy together with touching on from contributions past times Lee Morgan together with Kenny Drew during "Locomotion." The rails likewise features some brief but vital contributions from Philly Joe Jones -- whose efforts throughout the tape stand upwardly with his personal best. Of the 5 sides that comprise the master copy Blue Train, the Jerome Kern/Johnny Mercer ballad "I'm Old Fashioned" is the only standard; inwards price of unadulterated sentiment, this version is arguably untouchable. Fuller's rich tones together with Drew's tastefully executed solos cleanly twine around Jones' steadily languid rhythms. Without reservation, Blue Train tin easily last considered inwards together with with the most of import together with influential entries non only of John Coltrane's career, but of the entire genre of jazz music every bit well.
Maybe it’s the blueness of the cover, or its chamber-like sound, but John Coltrane’s Blue Train, similar Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, oft puts listeners inwards a reflective mood.
The encompass photograph of Blue Train, Coltrane’s 2d album every bit a leader together with the only recording he made for Blue Note, shows the saxophonist seemingly deep inwards thought, his face, arms together with shoulders, together with the mouthpiece of his instrument, saturated inwards a bluish chiaroscuro. It’s a profound album cover, in all probability i of the greatest e'er printed.
The session found Coltrane at an of import juncture inwards his career. About 4 months earlier, he had quit using heroin, together with at the fourth dimension of Blue Train’s recording, he was performing regularly at the Five Spot inwards New York inwards Thelonious Monk’s quartet. It’s in all probability rubber to assume that his newfound sobriety, coupled with the influence of Monk’s awkwardly refined sense of harmony, gave Coltrane a lot to intend about.
On Blue Train, Coltrane is inwards real practiced company. To start, at that topographic point are his 2 quondam bandmates from the Miles Davis Quintet, drummer Philly Joe Jones together with bassist Paul Chambers. (Davis had kicked Coltrane out of his grouping close 5 months prior to this recording.) Pianist Kenny Drew fills out the beat section, spell trumpeter Lee Morgan together with trombonist Curtis Fuller (the only histrion from this session who’s nonetheless alive) consummate the front end line.
The championship track, a haunting 10-minute blues, establishes Coltrane every bit i of the keen interpreters of the shape inwards jazz. In its starkness, it feels similar a nod to the modal music Coltrane would afterward play, most notably on the 1961 album My Favorite Things. Still, Coltrane solos with lots of notes, using long tones together with uneven phrases—and he sounds restless, every bit though he is trying to buy the farm on handle of all the ideas sloshing around inwards his mind. Morgan enters after Coltrane, with a spare together with memorable opener. (He was real practiced at those. Listen to his solo on the championship rails of Art Blakey’s Moanin’, a Blue Note set out recorded a yr later, for some other instance.)
On “Locomotion,” the album’s 3rd track, Morgan explodes similar a firecracker into a suspenseful, eight-bar break. His ensuing solo is an intricate braid of sound; his phrases never tangle. (Such virtuosity prompted the critic A.B. Spellman to clit Morgan’s functioning every bit “one of the keen jazz trumpet solos.”) The trumpeter’s brassy articulation serves every bit a practiced foil to Fuller’s smooth, soft-toned lyricism on trombone.
“Moment’s Notice,” some other Coltrane master copy with fast-moving chord changes, presages the recording of “Giant Steps”—Coltrane’s impossibly methodical composition that straightaway exists almost only for pedagogical purposes—by close 2 years. “Lazy Bird,” too, which supposedly draws from Tadd Dameron’s “Lady Bird” (which, inwards turn, draws from the touchstone “Have You Met Miss Jones?”) is some other bellwether of Coltrane’s intensely focused attending to harmony.
And hence at that topographic point is the ballad “I’m Old Fashioned,” the only rails on the album that Coltrane didn’t write. It is only lovely. Coltrane could play real sweetly when he wanted to, together with this vocal marks the participant every bit a refined together with sensitive ballad player—one of the best inwards jazz.
To telephone telephone Blue Train a difficult bop album, every bit many accept done, kind of misses the indicate of Coltrane’s singular, together with expansive, vision. Coltrane was non a difficult bop musician, exactly similar his then-boss, Thelonious Monk, cannot last described every bit a bebop musician, although he recorded with Charlie Parker, Max Roach together with Dizzy Gillespie, with others. If y'all desire to attempt to empathize Coltrane, it helps to await atBlue Train almost every bit a living thing, a signpost indicating some of the many roads he would explore inwards the 10 years before his early on death. But it also exists exactly fine on its own.
Track listing:
1. Blue Train 10:40
2. Moment's Notice 9:08
3. Locomotion 7:12
4. I'm Old Fashioned 7:55
5. Lazy Bird 7:04
Personnel:
John Coltrane – tenor saxophone
Lee Morgan – trumpet
Curtis Fuller – trombone
Kenny Drew – piano
Paul Chambers – bass
Philly Joe Jones – drums
EmoticonEmoticon