Discovery - At the Five Spot [Live]

John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 23, 1993)
• Original Release Date: March 23, 1993
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: Blue Note Records
• ASIN: B000002V2C
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,883 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #89 in Music > Indie Music > Jazz > Bebop

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stop Complaining!, August 19, 2000

By 

John E (Wisconsin, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Discovery - At the Five Spot (Audio CD)

Dogging this incredible CD because of its lo-fi sound is like dogging the Declaration of Independance because it's on old paper and is hard to read. I mean come on-it is clearly brilliant, joyful music. Get over the poor sound and be Thankful you are lucky enough to hear this great stuff.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heresy...., December 26, 2007

By 

Thomas Plotkin (West Hartford CT, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Discovery - At the Five Spot (Audio CD)

...many would say, but I believe Coltrane should have stayed a Monk sideman, judging by the evidence of this recording. No other Monk hornman shared Thelonious's lust for harmonic deconstruction. Usually players like Charlie Rouse, Johnny Griffin, or Sonny Rollins imposed structure on Monk's pixilated harmonic eccentricities, then the leader comes in with a piano solo that blows that order away. Only Trane, entering his furious sheets of sound period (he's like an erutping volcano), evinces a Monkian desire to shred order, structure, common sense. The two men were a match made in heaven, and they left only a tiny handful of recordings together. This is hands down the most anarchic (the whole band sounds weirdly restrained on the recently discovered Voice of America Recording). Coltrane sounds off-mike much of the time; his sound is so damn HUGE that you can still hear him loud and clear. The audio is poor, but who the hell cares when the music is of world historical importance. When you see a shooting star it's rarely under optimal conditions either, but would you pass up the experience?

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fun little journey, and it doesn't sound too bad, April 10, 2002

By 

Andy Williamson (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Discovery - At the Five Spot (Audio CD)

I see that a lot of folks have been criticizing the sound quality here. When I found this at my public library I hesitated. We've all heard BAD recordings that were put out only to line someone's pockets. In this case, even if the sound quality were terrible, I would still argue for its release. For Coltrane fans especially, this is a rare chance to hear him in one of his least recorded periods. The music is fun and the sound quality is much BETTER than I was expecting. For me, it falls somewhere in between the static of very early 1920's recordings (Louis Armstrong comes to mind) and the house chatter of the classic Bill Evans disc "Sunday at the Village Vanguard." There is crowd noise, but not TOO much, the music is fairly well balanced as far as one microphone recordings go. Monk's piano occasionally comes close to drowning out Coltrane. Considering the circumstances under which it was recorded, I was pleasantly surprised by how listenable this disc is. Keep in mind, if you have not had a lot of experience listening to low-quality recordings or bootlegs, then you may wish to hear this before purchasing it.