Jazz from the past

The inception of jazz flows in the same cultural vein as John Coltrane, and from beyond the grave, there is some new music flowing with the release of a long-lost recording by one of the greatest musicians to have ever lived.

Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy was released last week and was originally recorded in 1961 by the two American jazz musicians.

The recordings were discovered in a New York Public Library in 2017, more than 50 years later, and encapsulate an interesting period in John’s musical career.

By 1961, he had begun experimenting with modes and genre, moving towards the avant-garde sound that would be featured on records like Africa/Brass.

This period of experimentation proved highly controversial and Coltrane and collaborator Eric Dolphy faced criticism that their music during this period was “anti-jazz”.

This album features songs recorded during a brief residency in mid-1961 that the duo had at Village Gate, saved for posterity’s sake by engineer Richard Alderson.

There are five tracks on the album - My Favorite Things with Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers, When Lights Are Low with Benny Carter, Impressions, Greensleeves and Africa.

John plays soprano and tenor saxophone, while Eric plays alto saxophone, bass clarinet and flute, supported by Art Davis on double bass, Elvin Jones on drums, McCoy Tyner on the piano and Reggie Workman handling double bass and liner notes.

Thus far, the album has garnered universal acclaim, with one critic calling it ‘a freeze-frame of jazz as it escapes the present and absconds to the future’.