Shopping For Records #7: 4 Discs from the Village Vanguard
Amazon purchase:
John Coltrane
The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings Box Set
Impulse!
Released: 9.23.97
I think I picked this up around April. Amazon.com had cut a decent amount of loot off of the asking price, so I figured I’d shell out the bucks. When the box set arrived, I cleared as much room from my iPod as I could and managed to get all four recordings on there. Then it was all I played for about a week or two straight.
While reading Ben Ratliff ’s book, Coltrane: The Story of a Sound , I really felt the absence of the first Village Vanguard recordings from my album collection. These recordings were considered to be controversial for their time as Coltrane was in the process of breaking away from his Atlantic work and beginning his personal quest to find God through his saxophone. It would sound harsh, possibly irritating to some, and would cement Coltrane as a figurehead for the Avant movement, which was in its relative infancy with Ornette Coleman ...