In the late summer of 1961, a JOHN COLTRANE-led quintet featuring fellow saxophonist ERIC DOLPHY — as well as drummer Elvin Jones, pianist McCoy Tyner, and bassist Reggie Workman — held a month-long residency at a Downtown Manhattan club called the Village Gate. These performances came at a time of transition for Coltrane, who’d seen unprecedented popularity earlier that year with his now-ubiquitous rendition of The Sound of Music’s “My Favorite Things” but was subsequently panned for the extreme experimentation of his live sets, incomprehensible to most critics of the time.
The quintet is already immortalized on the beloved album Coltrane “Live” at the Village Vanguard, recorded several months later. But Impulse! Records have announced an album of newly unearthed recordings from the Village Gate sessions. EVENINGS AT THE VILLAGE GATE, out NOW, compiles unauthorized recordings of the group taken by the venue’s sound engineer, Richard Alderson, who ran a line from a single onstage mic to a reel-to-reel tape recorder to test the space’s new, state-of-the-art system.
Get your copy on vinyl 2xLP or CD HERE.
Evenings comprises five unreleased takes of Coltrane classics: “My Favorite Things,” “When Lights Are Low” (an older jazz standard), “Greensleeves” (an even older English folk standard), and two Coltrane originals — “Africa” and “Impressions.” This album is an excellent chance to two jazz titans wailing at their prime (not to mention the three other jazz titans behind them).
Evenings at the Village Gate tracklist
1. My Favorite Things
2. When Lights Are Low
3. Impressions
4. Greensleeves
5. Africa
Need we say more? Any fan of cutting-edge, improvisation-heavy jazz will want this release in their collection, and it’s out this Friday!
