This 2-CD set comes packaged in a slip case and cloth bound CD wallet. It features a 46 page booklet with essays, complete personnel listings and never-before-seen photos. It also includes four previously unreleased tracks, including an excerpt from Coltrane's last recorded concert, a month before his death in 1967.
This two-disc boxed set is not comprehensive, but it represents an accurate survey of Coltrane's career. Several tracks were originally released as singles or have never before been available, notably the rough "Hot House (Jam Session)," which was recorded in 1946 when Coltrane played in a Navy band at the age of 20, obviously influenced by Charlie Parker. Tracing Coltrane's career through the early 1950s, THE LAST GIANT finds him in his hard bop/Dexter Gordon period on the scratchy radio broadcast "Good Groove" and 1951's "We Love to Boogie," both with the Dizzy Gillespie Sextet.
Examples of Coltrane's work with Monk and the Miles Davis Quintet show him having already developed a distinct sound but still working toward the complexities into which he would grow. Highlights include successful forays into soprano sax playing ('My Favorite Things'), and the ever-increasing emotional and spiritual components of Coltrane's music. The less melodic, more experimental songs of his later career are not represented here, with the exception of the mostly dissonant, difficult "Ogunde," recorded live in 1967.
Recorded between 1946 and 1967. Includes liner notes by Joel Dorn, Lewis Porter, Ira Gitler, Amiri Baraka (a.k.a. Leroi Jones), Ed Bradley and Gary Vercelli.
Digitally remastered by Gene Paul (dB+, New York).
Personnel: John Coltrane (tenor saxophone).
Recording information: 1946-1967.
Personnel includes: John Coltrane (soprano, alto, tenor saxophones), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Red Garland, Mal Waldron, Kenny Drew, Tommy Flanagan, Wynton Kelly, McCoy Tyner, Alice Coltrane (piano), Kenny Burrell (guitar), Paul Chambers, Percy Heath, Wilbur Ware, Steve Davis, Reggie Workman, Jimmy Garrison, John Lathan (bass), Art Taylor, "Philly" Joe Jones, Shadow Wilson, Jimmy Cobb, Elvin Jones, Rashied Ali, Carl "Kansas" Fields, Charles "Specs" Wright, (drums).
Entertainment Weekly (8/13/93, p.75) - "...looking for a route into jazz from rock & roll? Take the Coltrane....a truly giant career neither abridged nor reshaped but glimpsed with complete clarity..." Rating: A
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