McCoy Tyner / Pharoah Sanders / David Murray / Cecil McBee / Roy Haynes – A Tribute To John Coltrane / Blues For Coltrane

I mean, shit, if I'm going to talk about Trane for a minute, how about another deep cut tribute featuring a pair of his sidemen.

This one came on out Impulse! back in the late 80s, featuring pianist McCoy Tyner and saxophonist Pharoah Sanders playing three Coltrane compositions, along with a Tyner track, a Billy Eckstein song, and one by David Murray that I typically skip over.

That's your call, homey.

Yet another one that I think is worthy of reissue; Pharoah pretty much wails on this. Great to hear him play "Naima" alongside Tyner. I think it gets missed because it came out in that weird "MCA/Impulse!" period when the catalog was probably not being paid close attention to, and just as a new generation of freaks was starting to discover the likes of Sun Ra and Archie Shepp.

Anyway, dig on it.

Discogs

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Elvin Jones "Special Quartet" – Tribute To John Coltrane: A Love Supreme

I may not believe in God, but I do believe that "A Love Supreme" is sacred music.

Here's drummer Elvin Jones' recreating one of my most treasured recordings with Wynton Marsalis rearranging the music for trumpet. It never got released here in the States; this is an EU release.

It ranks fourth of my list of recordings of "A Love Supreme".

Discogs

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John Coltrane - My Favorite Things (Live In Europe 1963)

I don't have much to say about this recording other than the following:

• Here's John Coltrane's classic quartet (Coltrane, Garrison, Jones, Tyner) performing live in Europe circa 1963...at least, that's what the spare information inside this quasi-legit release says
• This was a purchase from Bibelot Books & Music in Bel Air, MD, circa 1996, shortly after I got my first copy of A Love Supreme and fell deeply in lust with the rare musician worthy of their own church. I totally thought it was a budget copy of My Favorite Things...I didn't know better
• It's a pair of songs originally cut during Coltrane's excellent Atlantic run, as well as a deeper cut from his recording with the Red Garland Trio (1958, Prestige Records). I'm not Bob Thiele or Rudy van Gelder, but this shows Coltrane's quartet moving further away from bop sounds and into modal jazz mode
• This beats the hell out 99.9% of the records in my collection, even if it's a cruddy Euro live CD from the 90s with dodgy provenance

I would LOVE to hear more about this actual recording, if you're more of a scholar than I am.

Discogs

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