Live At The Village Vanguard Nov 1 1961 - John Coltrane (1961)

This is actually the “Complete Village Vanguard” set just recently released. If you want all 4 and a half hours of it, go for it. It’s all great.

For the purposes of this space, I limited myself to the November 1st set that leads off the collection.

Coltrane may have still been thought of by some as in the orbit of Miles Davis, having played in Davis’ Quintet and on Kind of Blue. By late 1961, he had already produced several classic albums as a bandleadero_O, but the music had been the modal jazz he’d been playing with Miles.

Here Coltrane charges through some extremely ambitious music, showing off not only his encyclopedic knowledge of western scales, but incorporating Indian and African systems as well.

The quintet features McCoy Tyner on piano, the immortal Elvin Jones on drums, and Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet and alto sax.

It’s an amazing document of an amazing musical mind.