In late 1962, John Coltrane had traveled a long distance in a short time in his restless expansion of musical territory. "Giant Steps," that monument to his virtuosity and vision, was nearly three years behind him. In it, he had packed into the standard jazz harmonic package about all it could hold, and then some. And yet, he couldn't quite let the song form go, even as he was blowing it apart. In these two concert performances with his best quartet, Coltrane gets inside two pieces, "Bye Bye Blackbird" and "Traneing In" (a blues with a bridge), does everything possible with their chord structures, and then moves into the impossible. It is some of the most powerful Coltrane tenor saxophone on record.

with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones