Live at Birdland | ||||
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Studio album / Live album by | ||||
Released | January 9, 1964 [1] [2] | |||
Recorded | October 8, 1963 (#1–3) March 6, 1963 (#6, CD only) November 18, 1963 (#4–5) | |||
Venue | Birdland, New York City (#1–3) | |||
Studio | Van Gelder (Englewood Cliffs) (#4–5) | |||
Genre | Jazz, post-bop | |||
Length | 38:54original LP 43:35 CD reissue | |||
Label | Impulse! A-50 | |||
Producer | Bob Thiele | |||
John Coltrane chronology | ||||
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Live at Birdland (stylized on the cover as Coltrane live at Birdland) is an album by the jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane. It was released on January 9, 1964 through Impulse! Records. [1] [2] [3] Three of its tracks were recorded live at the Birdland club and two are studio recordings. Among them is "Alabama", a tribute to four black children killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, a white supremacist terrorist attack in Birmingham, Alabama.
The album's original pressing accidentally included a false start–– this was corrected in later copies, but restored in CD editions. The album also features a live recording of "I Want to Talk About You", a song Coltrane had recorded on his 1958 album Soultrane , this time with an extended cadenza.
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [4] |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz | [5] |
Record Mirror | [6] |
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide | [7] |
Scott Yanow's five-star AllMusic review calls the recording "[a]rguably John Coltrane's finest all-around album". [4] A review in All About Jazz states: "Coltrane Live at Birdland showcases 'The Great Quartet' in excellent form: Elvin banging and cursin', McCoy a steady force maintaining the form, Jimmy Garrison pacing the beat and Coltrane stretching out into space filling the void... A definite collectors' item." [8] Reviewer C. Michael Bailey wrote: "If the listener wishes to hear the master in transition, look no further than Coltrane Live at Birdland." [3] LeRoi Jones wrote: "There is a daringly human quality to John Coltrane's music that makes itself felt, wherever he records. If you can hear, this music will make you think of a lot of weird and wonderful things. You might even become one of them." [9] In 2017, Pitchfork ranked the album as the 128th best of the 1960s. [10]
Regarding the track "Alabama", Ben Ratliff wrote: "It is a striking piece of music. If anyone wants to begin to understand how Coltrane could inspire so much awe so quickly, the reason is probably inside "Alabama". The incantational tumult he could raise in a long improvisation, the steel-trap knowledge of harmony, the writing—that's all very impressive. But "Alabama" is also an accurate psychological portrait of a time, a complicated mood that nobody else could render so well." [11]
All songs written by John Coltrane except as indicated
"Vilia" is a jazz arrangement of Franz Lehár's "Es lebt' eine Vilja, ein Waldmägdelein" from The Merry Widow . This track was first released on a 1965 compilation by Impulse! [12]
Alfred McCoy Tyner was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Master and five-time Grammy award winner. Unlike many of the jazz keyboardists of his generation, Tyner very rarely incorporated electric keyboards or synthesizers into his work. Tyner has been widely imitated, and is one of the most recognizable and influential jazz pianists of all time.
Impressions is an album of live and studio recordings by the jazz musician and composer John Coltrane. It was released through Impulse! Records in July 1963.
Crescent is a studio album by the jazz musician and composer John Coltrane. It was released in July 1964 through the label Impulse!. Alongside Coltrane on tenor saxophone, the album features McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones (drums) playing original Coltrane compositions.
Coltrane Plays the Blues is an album of music by the jazz musician John Coltrane. It was released in July 1962 by Atlantic Records. It was recorded at Atlantic Studios during the sessions for My Favorite Things, assembled after Coltrane had stopped recording for the label and was under contract to Impulse Records. Like Prestige Records before them, as Coltrane's fame grew during the 1960s, Atlantic used unissued recordings and released them without either Coltrane's input or approval.
Africa/Brass is a studio album by the jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane. It was released on September 1, 1961 through Impulse! Records. Coltrane's working quartet is augmented by a larger ensemble that brings the total to twenty-one musicians. Its big band sound, with the unusual instrumentation of French horns and euphonium, presented music very different from anything that had been associated with Coltrane to date. While critics originally gave it poor ratings, more recent jazz commentators have described it as "amazing" and as a "key work in understanding the path that John Coltrane's music took in its final phases." It is Coltrane's first release for Impulse!.
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman is a studio album by John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman which was released by Impulse! Records in July or August 1963. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013.
Coltrane Jazz is a studio album by the jazz musician John Coltrane. It was released in early 1961 on Atlantic Records. Most of the album features Coltrane playing with his former Miles Davis bandmates, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb during two sessions in November and December, 1959. The exception is the track "Village Blues", which was recorded October 21, 1960. "Village Blues" comes from the first recording session featuring Coltrane playing with pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones, who toured and recorded with Coltrane as part of his celebrated "classic quartet" from 1960 to 1965.
Coltrane "Live" at the Village Vanguard is a live album by the jazz musician and composer John Coltrane. It was released in February 1962 through Impulse Records. It is the first album to feature the members of the classic quartet of Coltrane with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones, as well as the first Coltrane live album to be issued. In contrast to his previous album for Impulse!, this one generated much turmoil among both critics and audience alike with its challenging music.
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.
The European Tour is a posthumous album by jazz musician John Coltrane released in 1980 on the Pablo label. The tracks were recorded on October 22, 1963 at the Koncerthuset in Stockholm, Sweden during a two-week European tour which was produced by Norman Granz, and which included concerts in Oslo, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Milan, Kaiserslautern, Frankfurt/Main, Paris, Berlin, Munich, and Stuttgart. Additional tracks from the Stockholm and Berlin concerts appear on Afro Blue Impressions. Tracks from Stockholm, Berlin, Paris, and Stuttgart are featured on the 2001 Pablo compilation Live Trane: The European Tours.
Newport '63 is a live album by jazz musician John Coltrane recorded at the 1963 Newport Jazz Festival, with one additional track recorded at the Village Vanguard in 1961. The album features the Coltrane quartet with drummer Roy Haynes substituting for Elvin Jones.
The John Coltrane Quartet Plays is an album by the jazz musician John Coltrane, recorded in February and May 1965, shortly after the release of A Love Supreme.
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.
"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).
Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album is a studio album recorded by saxophonist John Coltrane for Impulse! Records that was first released in 2018. The recordings were made in 1963 during Coltrane's Classic Quartet period and lost for decades.
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.