John Coltrane Standard Coltrane CD

Digitally remastered by Phil De Lancie (1990, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California).

This is a Hybrid Super Audio CD playable on Super Audio CD players and regular CD players.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

An indispensable recording for admirers of Coltrane's ballad playing, STANDARD COLTRANE emphasizes this moving, stirring aspect of Coltrane's career. The four long tracks serve as a reminder that the tenor saxophonist's skill does not lie exclusively in his faster, more energetic work, but that he is capable of great tenderness and romanticism. "Invitation" and "Don't Take Your Love From Me" are replete with the kind of singing solos Coltrane excels in, with his sax assuming all the tones and pitches of a human voice.

While indisputably romantic, STANDARD COLTRANE is not sentimental, and it suffers only from a bit of disorganization here and there, as well as the sense of Coltrane holding back from his own explorations to be in sync with his rhythm section. There is a vague underlying ambivalence on "I'll Get By" and "Spring Is Here" when the musicians seem to be heading in different directions, but this emotionally satisfying album is not ruined by these lapses.

Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey on July 11, 1958. Originally released on Prestige (7243).

Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey on July 11, 1958. Originally released on Prestige (7243). Includes liner notes by Robert Levin and Michael Cuscuna.

Personnel: John Coltrane (tenor saxophone); Wilbur Harden (trumpet); Red Garland (piano); Paul Chambers (bass); Jimmy Cobb (drums).

Record Collector (magazine) (p.98) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he session finds Trane applying his 'sheets of sound' ethos to four jazz standards."