JOHN COLTRANE — Olé Coltrane (review)

JOHN COLTRANE — Olé Coltrane album cover Album · 1961 · Hard Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Sean Trane
Definitely Trane’s other key 61-released album along with Africa/Brass, Olé is simply the best album he recorded with the Atlantic label, daring and adventurous enough that it could’ve been released on Impulse! Still by this time, Trane’s first quartet had not come to fruition yet, as the bass is still shared by Workman and Art Davis, while on winds, John shares the spotlight with the ever-excellent Freddie Hubbard and George Lane. With a very orangey artwork colour (shared by both Atlantic and Impulse!), Olé was recorded only two days after Africa/Brass, and this is no accident. If A/B had the obvious African influences on some tracks, Olé cannot escape showing its Spanish influences, at least on the title track.

Opening on a Flamenco-tinged contrabass, Olé soon engages in a strange piano-led raga trance, where Trane acts as the snake charmer with his haunting sax line, but Lane’s flute is the dragon charmer and just after that, Hubbard tames the tiger with his trumpet. What an amazing start, but things simply won’t calm down and soon enough, right after Tyner takes over the controls, the two basses are adding some amazing depth, with one plucked bass, while the second gets tamed by its bow to shriek some stupendous and guttural growls. Maybe a little later than Mingus’ Ysabel’s Table Dance or Miles & Evans’ Aranjuez pieces, Trane is now hot on their heels to post-bop’s supremacy race. Yes, Olé’s sidelong title track is one of the master’s top 10 tracks ever, and one of his most instantly recognisable.

The flipside opens with Dahomey Dance, the jazz is a lot more standard where the African influence doesn’t really appear obvious, neither immediately, nor in the long run. But it features a cool enthralling groove. The McCoy-penned Aisha might hint towards a Middle-East or Maghreb influence. Yup, the flipsude certainly fail to confirm the excitement of the A-side, but the Olé title track is soooo awesome that it is essential all by itself.
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