As the first review for HRAudio of a high-resolution jazz release not on SACD or Blu-Ray audio disc, it seems appropriate in this centennial year of John Coltrane (1926-2026) to discuss an excellent and comprehensive remastered set of Coltrane’s work.

“Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings” comprises 37 tracks Coltrane recorded as a leader in 1958, in chronological order as they were recorded in the original sessions. Many of the tracks were released multiple times on LP in compilations, mixed with tracks from other 1958 and 1957 sessions. Subsequent SACD reissues of the Prestige LPs replicated the selection of tracks. The original session presentation of Coltrane ’58 provides an opportunity to examine John Coltrane’s musical evolution as the pieces were performed, in a transitional phase of his career.

During John Coltrane’s first two years in the Miles Davis Quintet, the recorded evidence of his jazz conception, shaped by years of assiduous practice, was marred by the malign effects of heroin addiction. In this, he was not alone: all four sidemen in the Quintet were struggling with substance abuse. In 1957, Miles Davis angrily disbanded the Quintet, but Coltrane had the good fortune of being invited to study and play with Thelonious Monk, who had recently received a new cabaret card after a long period of suspension from performing in New York. During this time, Coltrane made progress on several fronts: he overcame heroin addiction, refocused his soloing and writing, and attracted attention from the New York jazz cognoscenti who filled the Half Note club to hear his performances with the Monk Quartet.

Bob Weinstock at Prestige signed Coltrane to a two-year contract. All-star blowing sessions and the first dates under Coltrane’s leadership were recorded in the late spring and early summer of 1957. The Prestige contract didn’t prevent Coltrane from recording with Monk for Riverside (Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane; Monk’s Music). Coltrane’s improving health and growing confidence are evident on the two remarkable albums he recorded for Blue Note in late 1957, John Coltrane: Blue Train and Sonny Clark: Sonny's Crib.

On January 10, 1958, Coltrane recorded the first of seven sessions in that year for Prestige under his own leadership. Had this material been released in its entirety, or minus one of the five lengthy pieces to fit onto a single LP, it would have been regarded as a worthy successor to Blue Train, and jazz listeners could have tracked Coltrane’s development as it was taking place. Instead, Prestige label owner Bob Weinstock held the tracks until long after Coltrane had changed musical directions, which served Weinstock’s interests but exacerbated the critical backlash that erupted over Coltrane and Eric Dolphy’s November 1961 sets at the Village Vanguard.

The reason for Weinstock’s delay: less than a month after the January 10 date, Miles Davis reconstituted all the members of his Quintet into a new Sextet with the addition of Cannonball Adderley, to begin sessions for the Columbia album “Milestones”. Weinstock realized that releasing Coltrane’s recordings after Columbia recorded and promoted new Miles Davis albums featuring Coltrane would boost sales of the Prestige titles. The January 10 tracks weren’t issued until the early 1960s, and as became a recurring pattern for Prestige, they were compiled with tracks from other recording sessions.

The five tunes recorded in that first session included three standards: “Lush Life”, “Come Rain or Come Shine” and “Lover”, and two originals, “The Believer”, written by a teenage McCoy Tyner, and “Nakatini Serenade” by composer Calvin Massey. All five performances, which feature a quintet of Coltrane; Donald Byrd, trumpet; Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; and Louis Hayes, drums, illustrate Coltrane’s leap out of the safety of bebop conventions into new musical territory.

Jazz critic Ira Gitler referred to Coltrane’s conception as “sheets of sound”, and the term has persisted. Coltrane’s own description demystifies the process: “[T]he tendency was to play the entire scale of each chord. Sometimes what I played didn’t work out in eighth notes, sixteenth notes, or triplets. I had to put the notes in uneven groups like fives and sevens in order to get them all in. I thought in groups of notes, not of one note at a time.” (Excerpted from the article “Coltrane on Coltrane”, quoted in Lewis Porter’s book “John Coltrane: His Life and Music”.)

Critical analysis of this session is long overdue. Porter skips from “Blue Train” and the recordings with Monk to Coltrane’s work in the Miles Davis Sextet, but it doesn’t require a conservatory degree to appreciate the beauty, brilliance and sheer excitement of the January 10 session. Donald Byrd was a rising “young lion” whose outstanding group with baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams would soon be recorded on the Blue Note label. Byrd might not be as harmonically adventurous as Coltrane, but his confident technique, energy and inventiveness more than justify his presence on the date. The masters used in this set are in mono, and those listeners who especially enjoy RVG’s live mono mixes will appreciate the warmth and depth of these tracks.

Jumping a few months ahead to March 26, 1958: Coltrane recorded a session with Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor, most of which was held back until 1961, when four of the five tracks were released (in mono) on the album “Settin’ The Pace”. It’s one of my favorite Coltrane albums. The March 26, 1958 tracks have never been issued on SACD, which is inexplicable. The tracks were recorded in two-channel stereo at a point when Rudy Van Gelder was intimately familiar with the individual sounds of each of the players. The tapes were well-preserved; every version in my collection, which includes the Original Jazz Classics (stereo) LP, JVC XRCD, and the earlier Concord 24/192 single album download, sounds remarkably clear and vivid. The new transfers on Coltrane ’58 manage to surpass the previous issues in sound quality.

Of the five tracks recorded on March 26, the ballad “I See Your Face Before Me” captures Coltrane at his most lyrical. Jacke McLean’s “Little Melonae”, previously recorded in 1955 with the Davis Quintet, and a second time with the Sextet earlier in March 1958, provides 14 minutes of unhurried space for a probing essay by Garland, a well-planned ‘stacked chords’ performance by Coltrane, and an agile solo by bassist Chambers. It was an artistically successful and sonically excellent date that should have been issued, at the very least, by September 1958 in tandem with Columbia’s release of “Milestones”.

All 37 of the tracks included on Coltrane ’58 benefit from listening in the original session order, in sonic quality that is noticeably improved from the earlier Concord 24/192 releases. When converted to high-rate DSD on my computer-based audio system, the sound is superior to the 1958 material that was issued on SACD (Lush Life, Soul Trane, Standard Coltrane, Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane). Craft Recordings gave the project the attention it deserved, having the tapes remastered by Paul Blakemore and bringing in Kevin Gray to cut lacquers for a lavish vinyl box set version.

Mastering engineer Paul Blakemore transferred the Coltrane '58 material directly from original Rudy van Gelder master analog tape reels. Blakemore did all the audio preservation, tape repair, digital transfers, audio restoration, and remastering.

[Excerpt from Paul Blakemore's website] "I simply could not believe how good these 60+ year old tapes sounded after I completed redoing dried out splices and other repairs. They were mostly recorded on Scotch 111, red oxide, acetate tape, and were mostly in really excellent condition. Rudy van Gelder's recordings are so intimate and immediate sounding, there were times when I felt 'Trane was standing in my studio playing."

Computer audiophiles: this 24/192 release and many other titles from Craft Recordings offer the highest audio quality for the most reasonable price. SACD enthusiasts: you have nothing to lose and much to gain by expanding your audio system to facilitate downloading or streaming such excellent releases as Coltrane ’58.

Released: March 29, 2019
Duration: 5 hours 38 minutes

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