Transition

John Coltrane | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 25, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Grp Records
• ASIN: B000003N6N
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,662 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: COLTRANE,JOHN
Title: TRANSITION
Street Release Date: 05/25/1993
Domestic
Genre: JAZZ

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ecstatic glories of the John Coltrane Quartet, February 6, 2000

By 

Chip Hartranft (Arlington, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Transition (Audio CD)

For the John Coltrane Quartet, 1965 marked a period of intensely accelerated change. It was at this time that Coltrane began his final creative ascent, uncoupling the characteristic ingredients of his style - modal transmogrification, anguished overtones, incantatory skips and repetition - from the moorings of the popular song form. His later works, seemingly shorn of any kinship to prevailing jazz idioms, became explicitly primal, mystical and redemptive. The music of the Coltrane ensembles from late 1965 until his death two years later remains challenging and enigmatic even now, a quarter century later.

The recordings that comprise 'Transition' show the JCQ at its most ecstatically unanimous. Still organized around recognizable structures, the first three sections of 'Transition' are vehicles for what was surely the hardest swinging small group of all time. Tyner, Garrison, and Jones churn behind Trane as never before, spinning complex webs of polyrhythmicity into stunning cadences. For his part, Coltrane soars above, around, and through them with some of the most abundantly inventive, panoramic solos he ever managed to capture on record.

Like most great works of art, 'Transition' cannot be completely assimilated on first encounter. Completely organic and self-contained, it continues to reveal its glories over years of repeated listening. I've been companioned by it for 30 years, and it moves me more, and differently, now than ever before.

'Transition' is beyond jazz, beyond category - it is a music of awakening, a glorious window on the soul. Don't live your life without it!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Staying with the odyssey, February 25, 2004

By 

Samuel Chell (Kenosha,, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Transition (Audio CD)

For me "Transition" is less a stage than a culmination of the rhapsodic and frequently rapturous spiritual quest of modern music's most Apollonian visionary. After this leg of the journey, I'm inclined to jump ship. More power to those who are able to join him for the ventures of the final two years, which to my ears (especially during the times I caught him live) became increasingly chaotic, repetitious, and paradoxically predictable. "Transition," on the other hand, has more energy than "A Love Supreme" yet retains sufficient form to produce some of the most engaging tensions in Trane's recorded ouevre. Listen, especially, for the emergence of a subtextual, low-register "counter-voice" during the development of Coltrane's solo on the opening title piece. It's as though the soloist splinters into two personae, creating a remarkable call-response exchange with his own inner voices. The lower register of the horn expresses a snarling and insistent, "Dionysian" claim which is immediately answered by the sublimely ecstatic incantations of the instrument's altissimo harmonics. Whether due to the victory of the transcendent voice or the exorcism of the more threatening, earthly one, the effect is both revelatory and cathartic.

Even a Coltrane album such as this, I've discovered, is "controversial" (at best) among many followers of jazz. All I can say, especially to those who won't go there because they "know what they like," is give it a few more chances. We also tend to like things we know, and "Transition" is a recording worth knowing.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars _A Love Supreme_ part 2--but even better, June 26, 2003

By 

Micah Newman (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Transition (Audio CD)

This one seems to get lost in the middle of the famous _A Love Supreme_, and the more audacious sound-explorations of late Coltrane. It's kinda easy to see why: _ALS_ is about as far as the casual jazz listener will want to go into the Coltrane experience, and the dedicated avant-garde enthusiast will likely spend more time with more-challenging work such as _Ascension_ and _Stellar Regions_. This one, very appropriately titled, is the transition, the album made immediately after _ALS_, into terra incognita and probing adventure.

You can tell right away by the song titles that _Transition_ is thematically structured quite similarly to _A Love Supreme_: the songs seem to be invocational, spiritual. One hits the ground running with the title tune, whose pentatonic, Tynerian theme makes the perfect opening statement: the ship of exploration has come ashore, and we are setting foot in a new land, boldly going where no one has gone before. But that idea is taken way beyond cliche by the truly unique, adventuresome spirit of the music. The classic quartet jams on this tune for 15 minutes, and Coltrane in his second solo gets into some frenzied, twisting altissimo squealing. Not easy listening, but it's invigorating in context.

"Welcome" has Coltrane massaging a lovely melody that feels like sitting down to watch the sunset after a hard day's physical labor. A welcome rest, with reflection. McCoy Tyner sparkles all over it with gorgeous piano runs. I can't help but think that whatever Alice Coltrane would have played on this tune, were it done later, would not have fit nearly as well as what Tyner does with it.

Following that is a "Suite" with several movements; again, not unlike what was done on the third track of _A Love Supreme_, except more fully explored. Varying moods are run through, and a distinctive Jimmy Garrison extended bass solo is included. At one point Coltrane plays with a modification of his earlier "Mr. P.C." theme, which is kind of interesting.

"Vigil" is a Coltrane/Jones sax/drums duet, presaging the late work _Interstellar Space_, an entirely-sax/drums LP with Rashied Ali. This one actually seems surprisingly restrained considering the freedom inherent in the spare format. I guess it wasn't until later that Coltrane really went to town with "free" playing. It works, though, and it's neat to hear him stretching out like this. For this period of Coltrane, it was pretty adventurous.

This is an excellent LP that maintains a high level of quality throughout. It should not be overlooked!