Crescent | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | July 1964 [1] | |||
Recorded | April 27 and June 1, 1964 | |||
Studio | Van Gelder (Englewood Cliffs) | |||
Genre | Avant-garde jazz, post-bop, modal jazz | |||
Length | 40:10 | |||
Label | Impulse! A-66 | |||
Producer | Bob Thiele | |||
John Coltrane chronology | ||||
|
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [2] |
Entertainment Weekly | (positive) [3] |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz | [4] |
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide | [5] |
The Village Voice | (positive) [6] |
Crescent is a 1964 studio album by jazz musician John Coltrane, released by Impulse! as A-66. Alongside Coltrane on tenor saxophone, the album features McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (double bass) and Elvin Jones (drums) playing original Coltrane compositions.
Coltrane does not solo at all on side two of the original LP; the ballad "Lonnie's Lament" instead features a long bass solo by Garrison. The album's closing track is an improvisational feature for Jones (with sparse melodic accompaniment from Coltrane's tenor sax and Garrison's bass at the song's beginning and end): Coltrane continued to explore drum/saxophone duets in live performances with this group and on subsequent recordings such as the posthumously released Interstellar Space (with Rashied Ali).
An earlier version of "Lonnie's Lament" appears on Afro-Blue Impressions , and an almost hour-long version of "Crescent" was recorded on Live in Japan . The entire album was collected on The Classic Quartet: The Complete Impulse! Recordings . Coltrane later recorded the song "After the Crescent", which appeared on 1978's To the Beat of a Different Drum .
The title track was later covered by Alice Coltrane for 2004's Translinear Light and McCoy Tyner on his 1991 album Soliloquy . Tyner recorded it again live for the albums McCoy Tyner Plays John Coltrane: Live at the Village Vanguard and Live at Sweet Basil . Guitarist Steve Lukather is the soloist on the version recorded for the 2005 tribute album A Guitar Supreme. [7] The SFJAZZ Collective covered four of the songs on their SFJAZZ Collective 2, with Nicholas Payton and Joshua Redman soloing on the title track. [8]
Garrison's widow recalled that this album along with A Love Supreme were the two he listened to the most. [9]
All songs composed by John Coltrane and published by Jowcol Music (BMI)
Side one
Side two
John Coltrane Quartet
Technical personnel
Compact Disc release
Chart (2022) | Peak position |
---|---|
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) [10] | 101 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [11] | 38 |
James Emory Garrison was an American jazz double bassist. He is best remembered for his association with John Coltrane from 1961 to 1967.
A Love Supreme is an album by American jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. He recorded it in one session on December 9, 1964, at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, leading a quartet featuring pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones.
Impressions is an album of live and studio recordings by jazz musician John Coltrane, released by Impulse! Records in July 1963.
Transition is an album of music by jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, recorded in 1965 but released posthumously only in 1970. As its title indicates, Transition was a bridge between classic quartet recordings like A Love Supreme and the more experimental works of Coltrane's last years.
Meditations is a 1966 album by John Coltrane. The album was considered the "spiritual follow-up to A Love Supreme." It features Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders as soloists, both playing tenor saxophones. This was the last Coltrane recording to feature his classic quartet lineup of himself, bassist Jimmy Garrison, drummer Elvin Jones and pianist McCoy Tyner, as both Jones and Tyner would quit the band by early 1966. Sanders, Ali, Garrison and Coltrane's wife Alice would comprise his next group.
Coltrane is a studio album by jazz saxophonist, bandleader, and composer John Coltrane. It was recorded in April and June 1962, and released in July of that same year by Impulse! Records. At the time, it was overlooked by the music press, but has since come to be regarded as a significant recording in Coltrane's discography. When reissued on CD, it featured a Coltrane composition dedicated to his musical influence "Big Nick" Nicholas that the saxophonist recorded for his Duke Ellington collaboration Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (1963). The composition "Tunji" was written by Coltrane in dedication to the Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji.
First Meditations (for quartet) is an album by John Coltrane recorded on September 2, 1965 and posthumously released in 1977. It is a quartet version of a suite Coltrane would record as Meditations two months later with an expanded group. Along with Sun Ship, recorded a week earlier, First Meditations represents the final recordings of Coltrane's classic quartet featuring pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones.
The Classic Quartet – The Complete Impulse! Recordings is a 1998 box set by jazz musician John Coltrane with recordings from his classic quartet, including pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones.
The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings is a box set of recordings by jazz musician John Coltrane, issued posthumously in 1997 by Impulse! Records, catalogue IMPD4-232. It collects all existing recordings from performances by the John Coltrane Quintet at the Village Vanguard in early November, 1961. Five selections had been issued during Coltrane's lifetime on the albums Live! at the Village Vanguard and Impressions. Additional tracks had been issued posthumously on the albums The Other Village Vanguard Tapes, Trane's Modes and From the Original Master Tapes.
Brazilia is a live album by jazz musician John Coltrane. It was recorded at the Half Note Club in New York City on May 7, 1965, and was released in 1978 by Blue Parrot Records. On the album, Coltrane is accompanied by the members of his "classic quartet": pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones.
Living Space is a compilation album by jazz musician John Coltrane. Released posthumously by Impulse! Records on March 10, 1998, it features pieces recorded in 1965. Almost all of them had been previously issued on the Kulu Sé Mama CD reissue and on The Mastery of John Coltrane, Vol. 1: Feelin' Good. The only previously unissued track is "Last Blues".
Live at the Half Note: One Down, One Up is a 2005 double CD compilation of two previously unreleased 1965 Friday radio broadcasts – March 26 and May 7 – at the Half Note Club in New York City, featuring John Coltrane with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones.
To the Beat of a Different Drum is a double album by jazz musician John Coltrane released posthumously in 1978. It is a compilation of recordings in which Roy Haynes replaced Coltrane's regular drummer Elvin Jones.
New Thing at Newport is a 1965 live album featuring two separate sets from that year's Newport Jazz Festival by tenor saxophonists John Coltrane and Archie Shepp. It was recorded four days after the recording session for Coltrane's album Ascension, on which Shepp appeared, and is one of several albums documenting the end stages of Coltrane's "classic quartet," which would begin to break up by the end of that year with the departure of McCoy Tyner.
Selflessness Featuring My Favorite Things is a posthumous album by jazz musician John Coltrane, released in 1969. The album juxtaposes two tracks recorded live at the 1963 Newport Jazz Festival with a single track ("Selflessness") recorded in a studio in Los Angeles in 1965.
"Alabama" is a musical composition by the American jazz artist John Coltrane, first recorded in 1963 by Coltrane with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones. Two takes from that session appear on Coltrane's 1964 album Live at Birdland. It is widely believed that Coltrane conceived of and performed the composition in response to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing on September 15, 1963—an attack by the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four African-American girls: Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Carol Denise McNair (11).
The Mastery of John Coltrane, Vol. I: Feelin' Good is a compilation album by American saxophonist John Coltrane, the first of a series of four compilations released on Impulse! between 1978 and 1979, all sharing the same cover artwork designed by Stuart Kusher, Richard Germinaro and Vigon Nahas Vigon. It features pieces recorded in 1965, seven in studio and one live. All the tracks were previously unissued in these mixes at the time of release. At present, the availability of said tracks is as follows:
The New Wave in Jazz is a live album recorded on March 28, 1965 at the Village Gate in New York City. It features groups led by major avant-garde jazz artists performing at a concert for the benefit of The Black Arts Repertory Theater/School founded by Amiri Baraka, then known as LeRoi Jones. The album was released on LP in 1965 on the Impulse! label, and was reissued on CD in 1994 with a different track listing.
Dear Old Stockholm is a compilation album by jazz musician John Coltrane released by GRP and Impulse! in 1993. The music, which was recorded on April 29, 1963 and May 26, 1965 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, features Coltrane's quartet with Roy Haynes substituting for Elvin Jones on drums.
A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle is a live album by American saxophonist John Coltrane, released on October 22, 2021, through Impulse! Records. It was recorded on October 2, 1965, at the Seattle jazz club The Penthouse, by saxophonist Joe Brazil. The tapes were found five years after Brazil's death in October 2008 by the saxophonist Steve Griggs. It is one of only two recorded live performances of Coltrane's 1965 album A Love Supreme, the other being a July 1965 recording from the Jazz à Juan jazz festival in Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, France, which was released in 2002 as part of the deluxe edition of A Love Supreme.
Notes
Bibliography