John Coltrane – Soultrane (OJC)

John Coltrane's Soultrane catches him in 1958, during his first year with Prestige and at a point when he was already widely recognised alongside Sonny Rollins as one of jazz's defining tenor voices. Recorded at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, it pairs Coltrane with Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor for a five-track set that shows how quickly his own language was taking shape.

What makes Soultrane so rewarding is its range within a compact format. Coltrane moves from the poised swing of “Good Bait” to the ballad depth of “I Want to Talk About You” and “Theme for Ernie,” then closes with a famously fast, hard-charging take on “Russian Lullaby.” Across those different moods, you can hear the dense, agile phrasing that critics came to call his “sheets of sound,” but also a more lyrical side that keeps the album from feeling like a blowing session alone.

It can sit slightly in the shadow of nearby Coltrane titles such as Blue Train and Lush Life, yet that is part of its appeal: this is a vivid picture of his development rather than a footnote to it. For this Original Jazz Classics edition, the album returns in an all-analog cut from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, pressed at RTI and housed in a Stoughton tip-on jacket.

Features

• 180g, OJC
• AAA lacquers cut from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio
• Pressed at RTI
• Stoughton tip-on jacket
• Obi strip