Customer Reviews

Bahia

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's Coltrane phrasing. It's Coltrane easier.
Not the conceptual hardbop Coltrane but the great soloist in two wonderful standard slow ballads "My Ideal" and "Something I Dreamed Last Night".
The opening is an exotic uptempo version of Brazilian traditional Samba classic "Bahia" by the late composer Ary Barroso, the same composer of "Brazil" ("Aquarela do Brasil").
A different and necessary Coltrane!

overall, Bahia is a great album. the performances are well-measured and the playing is full of creative ideas; but in comparison to all the other Coltrane albums (on the Prestige label and othewrwise) i feel like Bahia may be overlooked in the scope of things. the title track and Goldboro Express start off the album with an enormous amount of fire and class. Goldboro Express in particular, being one of the highlights of Coltrane's entire Prestige recorded output. but the rest of the album falls squarely into the "sounds good...but not great" category. the ballads are simply beautiful...but only so. one can't help but feel that there wasn't quite enough room explored within these melodic phrasings. Coltrane's playing is (as usual) faultless...but the song's range seems limited....most likely due to record company issues and studio time being limited. Bahia is not a bad purchase....but it's not an immediate "must buy" situation. for the average Coltrane fan who is curious aboiut the Prestige catalogue, i would suggest Black Pearls and Soul Trane is the two to get first...then check out Dakar...from then...well...it's an open game. but Bahia is on the list somewhere.

All of Coltrane's Prestige catalog, while not so much influenced by the Eastern sounds that would later envelop his music, is wonderful. You get to hear Trane in a more traditional setting somewhere between his work with Miles (in fact he was still with Miles when this stuff was recorded) and his first steps (ha pun not intended) away from more traditional tunes on the Atlantic label. Now, there are 11 CDs that make up this catalog (Trane as a leader on Prestige). You do the math. If you buy 'em separately you are going to pay around $125.00. You can get the Fearless Leader box set right here on Amazon for half that price PLUS you get a great guide to all the music Trane recorded as a leader for Prestige, a complete "session-ography", nice picks of all the CD covers including some of those that went through some changes over the year, 45 rpm single covers and so on. It's a very nice package. Buy this if you must but I recommend you save your pennies for a few weeks until you can afford to buy Fearless Leader.

This is early Trane, and is really only for collectors. Trane does an adequate job here but doesnt show any of the fire or flair that makes him stand out so later.

There are a few nice ballads here, but you're better off picking up Lush Life or Soultrane if you want that type of music from this era of Trane.

Only percieved mediocre because of how gigantic his fast burning but well stocked recording life went, the disc of early profound warm-ups could be called a fans only outing, though that would still be denying listeners stand-up, if commonplace beginners Coltrane material, with its share of warts but rewarding with giving glimpses inside shimmered solos.

Bahia is a particular different work of Coltrane, that took a unique personality to the word of jazz and wich work should be known by the jazz lovers.