Bags & Trane

Milt Jackson & John Coltrane, John Coltrane, Milt Jackson

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Original Release Date: January 15, 1959
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Atlantic / Wea
• ASIN: B000002I57
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,930 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Limited Edition Japanese pressing of this album comes house in a miniature LP sleeve. 2006. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Old lion meets young lion with rip-roarin' results, May 26, 2000

By	Tyler Smith (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This 1960 release does both Coltrane and vibist Jackson proud. Coltrane was considered at the time a "New Wave" proponent with his then-shocking "sheets of sound" vertical attack, while Jackson was a bebop mainstay. On "Bags and Trane" they sound utterly at ease with one another and produce some beautiful jazz.

At the core of the album is the obvious respect that the two musicians had for one another. Coltrane attacks more aggressively, but his hard-edged sound proves a perfect foil for Jackson's mellow, ringing vibes. On "The Night We Called It a Day," you can hear how carefully they listened to each other, one solo blending into the other without costing the tune a beat.

Pianist Hank Jones, Jackson's Modern Jazz Quartet bandmate drummer Connie Kay and longtime Trane collaborator bassist Paul Chambers solidify the album. Jones, in particular, plays a wonderfully understated piano, relying largely on space and single notes to deepen the contrast with Trane's dense attack.

The CD adds tunes originally found on the vinyl release "The Coltrane Legacy," and the new material is a plus. The ballad "Stairway to the Stars" offers a particularly poignant turn by Coltrane, who isn't afraid to show his emotion, and "Centerpiece" is a great mellow blues.

This album will be rewarding to fans of Coltrane and Jackson alike. Best of all, if you're a fan of both (like me), you'll get a double dose from two great jazz musicians who showed how much they respected one another by listening to every musical word the other had to say.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just 3 little words... THIS IS GREAT!, December 21, 2000

By	Pharoah S. Wail (Inner Space) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

With all the press and discussion that surrounds the album immediately following this one, GIANT STEPS, this cd is all too often overlooked. Big mistake! This is one of my favorite cd's from Coltrane's time with the Atlantic label. I noticed in the previous reviews that a few people referred to Coltrane's sound and style as "harsh" or "attacking". That caught me off guard, I've never considered him to sound harsh on this at all. I could understand people thinking that way about some of his late-period playing but on this cd his playing flows like liquid silk. So many people think of Coltrane only as a harmonic genius but listening to this cd it is impossible to deny his total brilliance and mastery of rhythm. Quite simply, no one felt the pulse of a tune the way Coltrane did. This is not the scouring, searching, peeling away the layers of self to find redemption Coltrane of later years (a Coltrane which I myself love, but some people hate), this is Coltrane in a straight-ahead format, turning phrases inside out and back around into themselves, and doing it with incredible tenor tone. I love the sonic quality of this recording, Coltranes tone is just beyond words on this cd.

For sheer beauty and swinging mastery of melodic improvisation it almost doesn't get any better than what Coltrane does here on tunes like Be-Bop, Bags & Trane, Stairway To The Stars, etc...

And no, I am not forgetting about the rest of the band. Paul Chambers is brilliant on this cd. Milt also shows what he was made of on this cd, and he was made of some very fine stuff. What someone thinks of this cd overall may well depend on what they think of the vibraphone. If you don't like vibraphone then you may wish Milt Jackson wasn't on this, but if you do like it then this really is a classic recording. And quite honestly, if you're just a Coltrane fan this cd is still completely worth it even if you hate the vibraphone. I think this cd has, without a doubt, some of Coltrane's most incredible playing of the 1950's.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Purls like a river, erupts like a volcano, April 10, 2002

By	Douglas LaRose (Santa Barbara, CA) - See all my reviews

This is a very nice disc. Milt Jackson on Vibraphone calls for some funky type of riffs that seem to crescendo once or twice per solo. What is nice is that usually it will be Coltrane and Jackson back to back, leaving each other a lot of room to do individual solos, and then they will come in together very triumphantly. "Stairway to the Stars," the first track in the disc (but not on the originally LP release) is a very nice, mellow track which is perfect for a nice dinner.

I do recommend, however, that rather than buying this album you purchase "The Heavyweight Champion: John Coltrane, The Complete Atlantic Recordings." This 7-CD set may be a little pricy but you get all 10 of Coltranes Atlantic recordings plus a disc of all of the outtakes. The Bags & Trane sessions are particularly emphasized on the box set, so you get much more than you would just buying "Bags and Trane."

Enjoy