Mssr_Renard Much has been written about this album.

An album that can easily be defined as a masterpiece. Coltrane has made different masterpieces, each different from the other.

This album is not a quartet album, but it features a 'big band', there are 21 musicians featured on this album, but not all at once. The core 'band' is Coltrane/Tyner/Workman/Jones, with Dolphy doing the arrangments.

Somewhere I read the whole album is in the key of 'E', making this an even more brilliant album, because it is worlds apart from anything Bop stands for.

This is an album wich so much happening that any time you play it, you discover something new. I think it is more a modern classical album than a straight jazz album.

I don't know if this album propelled Impulse! or later albums by Coltrane. I think that Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth was more succesfull, though, but I really don't know these things.

Back to Africa/Brass, a wonderful album with a lot of brass (horns), wonderful musicians, and everyone is really enjoying themselves and giving their best. You can really tell.

js This review of “New Thing at Newport” is based on the original LP on the Impulse! label, and what a beautiful production it is. You get a gatefold album cover with plenty of inside liner notes written by Nat Hentoff and Archie Shepp, plus a nice photo of Archie on the back cover decked out in about the coolest sports jacket you have ever seen. Shepp and John Coltrane share this album, but they do not play together. One track from Coltrane’s evening performance leads off the album, which is followed by four Shepp tracks that took place earlier that day in the afternoon.

Coltrane’s “One Down, One Up” is an absolute powerhouse performance from arguably the hottest quartet in jazz history. This is the last year that Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner will stay with John, but they certainly found their mountainous peak before moving on. The recording quality is pretty bad, but John and McCoy come through loud and clear. The lead melody is a short little RnB riff, but listen how Coltrane works it and develops it. There is a reason why other musicians consider him to be a genius and worthy of emulating. Possibly knowing what Coltrane was going to be doing that evening, Archie decides not to go for the same intensity during his afternoon performance. Instead, he presents an eclectic set of almost chamber-like avant-garde jazz, possibly somewhat similar to Eric Dolphy’s “Out to Lunch” album.

The recording quality on the Shepp tracks is much better, possibly the Coltrane set just had way too much sonic volume to deal with. “Rufus” is a free post bop number with great playing from Archie, as well as Bobby Hutcherson on vibes who is excellent all though his part of the album. “Le Matin des Noire” has some interesting arrangements and sometimes resembles a 20th century avant-garde classical piece. “Tracks” is a short little spoken diatribe against heroin and the injustices that encourage it, and “Call Me by My Rightful Name” is a ballad of sorts with Archie shifting between a pretty melody and very odd atonal excursions.

js “John Coltrane Concert in Japan” does not have very good sound quality, but it is an important example of an important group at a time of important development. Back when this album was recorded (1966), it seemed all avant-garde jazz was poorly recorded, as if that was one more way of avoiding commercialism and/or the establishment. To this day I sometimes wonder if that was the case for some of the early free jazz albums. By 1966, free jazz was not exactly new anymore, but it was still fairly new to a lot of people and it would still take a few more years for free jazz to become an accepted part of the jazz world.

Although very much an avant-garde album when it was recorded, Coltrane’s playing on here is mostly tonal as he delivers sheets of modal scales and pentatonic colors. Pharoh Sanders, on the other hand, is more apt to slip into screams and exclamations, as well as making his saxophone sound like a pre-colonial African reed instrument no where near the European concert invention it is. Rashied Ali’s drumming continues the African vibe as he is able to sound like a large African percussion ensemble by himself. Alice Coltrane supplies cascading scales and chords, often imitating an Indian tamboura in the way she provides a constant background for the soloists. Jimmy Garrison on bass is the only person left from Coltrane’s more traditional previous group, but unfortunately you can barely hear him at all.

If Sanders and Ali bring an African sound, the Coltranes often seem to be channeling classical Indian music with John’s relaxed opening to “Peace on Earth” sounding much like a morning raga. The way the two Coltranes build their improvisations again recalls Indian ragas. Although, “Peace on Earth”, mostly lives up to its name, the rest of the music on here is quite intense, especially when Sanders gets everyone fired up with his fierce repeating atonal scales. On the closing track, Sanders and Coltrane finally solo together and what a hell raiser that is. Too bad there was not more of their simultaneous improvs on here.

liontime In my own experience, I have never known an album to have as much replay value as this one. I know that this experience isn't exclusive to myself and I believe that that can be attributed to the true genius of this album.

Not only is Trane at his best during this session, but this album is a high point for McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison. The classic quartet never sounds better than on these four tracks.

Jimmy Cobb said that Kind of Blue must have been made in heaven. If that's true, then A Love Supreme must have been made somewhere beyond that.

Amilisom I originally found this on CD at a yard sale about 2 or 3 summers ago for 2 dollars. It was a fantastic deal, and I'm glad I went for it. Since then I've had good feelings regarding this album. I've returned to it many times without disappointment, and can't help but regard this as truly one of the greatest hard bop albums of all time.

The lineup for most of the album consists of John Coltrane in a quartet with Tommy Flanagan on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Taylor on drums. Unless my information is incorrect, it is the first album that consists of entirely Coltrane compositions and is the first album of Coltrane's on the Atlantic Records record label. In 2004 it was selected as one of fifty recordings added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.

And for good reason! Not only is the improvisation on the musicians' parts spot on, but the album as a whole offers a broad palette of hard bop tunes. "Giant Steps" is one of Coltrane's most famous tunes, if not his greatest. It features unorthodox chord changes that give a nod to the post bop that was to come a few years later. "Cousin Mary" is a blues tune that the musicians burn through with ease. "Countdown" is a very fast tune that actually doesn't have piano accompaniment for half of it. This particular aspect would be a prominent characteristic in future post bop tunes, like "Orbits" off of the Davis album "Miles Smiles", for example.

The last four tunes I especially think are special. "Spiral" has a cool feel to it as it has a slower tempo and held out chromatic chord changes in the accompaniment, which give the solos a nice textured background. "Syeeda's Song Flute" has the cool feel of "Spiral" but with a sense of subtle intensity.

"Naima" is probably one of my favorite jazz ballads. I believe it to rival the cool blueness of "Blue In Green" from Miles's famous "Kind of Blue". Not only does the ballad have a sadder sound to it than the typical jazz ballad standard, but it also uses some of the strangest chord changes that I have ever seen used in a ballad. Somehow, they still manage to function together to create something blue and beautiful.

"Mr. P.C." is a fast minor blues tune, and I would like to quickly clear up any millennial misunderstandings regarding the tune name.

"P.C." stands for "Paul Chambers", the bassist, and has nothing to do with computers.

While listening to the alternate takes, I discovered something interesting regarding the alternate take of "Giant Steps". The musicians play it at the same tempo, but hold notes longer in a way that feels lazier and less tight than the original. I noticed that in Coltrane's solo, he would begin playing licks that easily resemble those of the original solo before quickly changing his mind and moving in a direction that led the lick someplace else or just simply stopped playing. Overall, it doesn't sound like Coltrane was as deeply engrossed as the original.

Overall I think this album is a masterpiece and is essential for any jazz fan to own. It was not a disappointment for myself, and will hopefully continue to be this way for jazz fans to come.