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Take The 'Trane Sideways
21 OCT 09 CHRIS SLAWECKI
A new compilation to help celebrate Prestige Records' 60th anniversary, the five-CD Side Steps pulls together almost all of the Prestige sessions on which Coltrane played as a supporting (or side) musician, not as the leader. Side Steps spans early 1956 into '58, some great jazz years not only for Coltrane but many others in this collection.
Even though you find such classics as his "Tenor Madness" romp with Sonny Rollins early in this set, I keep returning to discs three, four and five, which capture some of the funkiest tenor this 'Trane ever blew. He sounds so loose that you begin to wonder if he felt more pressure as a leader and sometimes enjoyed when someone else sweated the details and he could just play.
Discs three and four present Coltrane with trumpeter Donald Byrd -- who was just beginning to find his own jazz wings and eventually helped found the modern jazz-funk school -- in the frontline of pianist Red Garland's quintet on sessions comprising four albums: All Mornin' Long, Soul Junction, High Pressure and Dig It!
Disc five presents 'Trane in a quintet led by Ray Draper's tuba and among Gene Ammons' All-Stars on Jug's raucous party-time throwdown Groove Blues. The overly round sound of Draper's tuba doubling Coltrane as the saxophonist slashes through "Paul's Pal" seems so incongruous that you can't help but smile. Blowing daggers on alto that pierced Ammons' big fat puffs of tenor funk, the Groove Blues date was Coltrane's last as a tenor for hire.
The only sessions not found on this collection are ’Trane’s Prestige sideman work with the Miles Davis Quintet. Those are collected in The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions box, also worth a listen.
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Tenor Madness
John Coltrane, from Side Steps
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Solitude
The Red Garland Quintet, from High ...
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It Might As Well Be Spring
Gene Ammons And His All-Stars, from Groove ...
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Contour
Art Farmer & Donald Byrd, from 2 Trumpets
in this playlist.
