Customer Reviews

Like Sonny

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

 

 

This is actually two LP's on one CD. The first four tunes are from:
John Coltrane - Like Sonny (Roulette ROU 1012): John Coltrane (ts) McCoy Tyner (p) Steve Davis (b) Billy Higgins (d)
United Recording Studios, Los Angeles, CA, September 8, 1960
#1 Exotica (alt. take)
&
John Coltrane/Lee Morgan - The Best Of Birdland, Vol. 1 (Roulette SR 52094): same session - United Recording Studios, Los Angeles, CA, September 8, 1960
#2 Exotica
#3 One For Four (aka Mr. Day)
#4 Simple Like (aka Like Sonny)
And the last six are from:
Ray Draper - A Tuba Jazz (Jubilee JLP 1090): Ray Draper (tu) John Coltrane (ts) John Maher (p) Spanky DeBrest (b) Larry Richie (d)
NYC, November, 1958
#5 Essil's Dance
#6 Doxy
#7 I Talk To The Trees
#8 Yesterdays
#9 Oleo
#10 Angel Eyes

The outstanding tracks from this recording are the first four from a 1960 session with McCoy Tyner, Steve Davis and Billy Higgins. This session released on Roulette marks a bridge between Coltrane's Prestige/Blue Note recordings and those on Atlantic.
The quartet sounds fresh, relaxed and spontaneous, the session has an effervescent spirituality and transcendence that is more subtle and less weighty than some of his later "religious" recordings, e.g. A Love Supreme.
McCoy Tyner sounds light and joyous, and on these four cuts, Coltrane seems to have found whatever he was searching for all those years.
After listening to this album for over 25 years, it's haunting beauty continues to grow on me. It has always between my favourite Coltrane recording and possibly my favourite jazz album of all time. Do not overlook this recording!

You won't find any of the incredible, epic solos that made Coltrane famous here; _Like Sonny_ can better be described as 'pleasant' than 'epic'. That's not to say it's bad, though, or even shallow, of course.. this is unmistakably Coltraneish (and Tynerish - actually, the first four tracks on this CD represent the first time they played together), but in a more playful frame of mood. (Hey, how serious can you be with a tuba as part of your jazz ensemble?) Rewards close listening, also rewards uncritical grooving to the beat.

My personal favourite tracks are "One and Four", the disc opener with the trademark Coltrane bass-then-drums-then-everyone-else opening and a casually sublime head, and "I Talk to the Trees", which starts with a neat drum solo and quickly reveals itself as a smouldering, effortlessly cool Latin groove.

The first four tracks on this record are the first commercially available cuts of a Coltrane band with McCoy Tyner on the bench. These dates, for Roulette, are from September 1960, about one month before their first sessions for Atlantic.

The pianist had been playing live with Trane, mainly around Philadelphia and New York, for a couple of years while the horn man was still in the great Miles Davis band. The story goes that Coltrane told Tyner to hold tight, that when he left Davis they would play together. The earliest recorded document is from the Jazz Gallery, also in 1960, but Tyner has stated that they had started playing together when he was only 17, which would have been 1955!

It is incredible to listen to these tracks in the context of Tyner's other work from 1960. While all of it is above-average hard bop, there is no denying that he simply plays and sounds somehow different when playing with Trane, even this early.

I agree with the previous reviewer which has perfectly described this recording. It is spiritualistic, joyful, happy, airy, fresh and optimistic music what Coltrane and Tyner played in this recording which stands between the Blue Note period and the Atlantic one. Trane seems really to have found what he really searched for. And he is in perfect shape. It's all in the openere, the fantastic Mr Day. Here he didn't play those long, solipsistic, boring sometimes I must admit, furios solos he played later in the end of his career. Here he's focused, melodic, with a fantastic sound. Tyner is the most Tyneresque piano player here. =))) Even if I'm joking a little bit, this album is not a joke. Simply some of the best Coltrane's music you can buy. If you have Favourite things, Ballads, Giant steps, Like Sonny, Crescent, Blue Train, Plays the blues, and few more things, you have the best Coltrane. If you want my opinion, stay away from his "spaced out" later period. Uh, I don't like A love supreme either. It's a way over-evaluated recording.