John Coltrane Quartet: Ballads

Straightahead / Mainstream Jazz
premiera polska: 2008-02-22
kontynent: Ameryka Północna
kraj: USA
opakowanie: digipackowe etui
opis:
Po okresie powtórnej współpracy z Milesem Davisem (1958-60) John Coltrane założył swój najsłynniejszy kwartet, z Tynerem, Garrisonem i perkusistą Elvinem Jonesem. W tym składzie obok legendarnej 'A Love Supreme' powstała tak niepodobna do innych 'Ballads'. Płyta brzmi bardzo spokojnie i lirycznie, jakby artysta chciał udowodnić sceptykom, że szorstkość stylu nie jest jego stałą cechą.

Editor's Info:
Throughout John Coltrane's discography there are a handful of decisive and controversial albums that split his listening camp into factions. Generally, these occur in his later-period works such as Om and Ascension, which push into some pretty heady blowing. As a contrast, Ballads is often criticized as too easy and as too much of a compromise between Coltrane and Impulse! (the two had just entered into the first year of label representation). Seen as an answer to critics who found his work complicated with too many notes and too thin a concept, Ballads has even been accused of being a record that Coltrane didn't want to make. These conspiracy theories (and there are more) really just get in the way of enjoying a perfectly fine album of Coltrane doing what he always did -- exploring new avenues and modes in an inexhaustible search for personal and artistic enlightenment. With Ballads he looks into the warmer side of things, a path he would take with both Johnny Hartman (on John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman) and with Duke Ellington (on Duke Ellington and John Coltrane). Here he lays out for McCoy Tyner mostly, and the results positively shimmer at times. He's not aggressive, and he's not outwardly. Instead he's introspective and at times even predictable, but that is precisely Ballads' draw.
by Jack LV Isles, All Music Guide

muzycy:
John Coltrane - tenor sax
McCoy Tyner - piano
Jimmy Garrison - bass
Elvin Jones - drums


nagrano: 1961/62, New Jersey
more info: www.impulse-label.com
more info2: www.johncoltrane.com