JOHN COLTRANE QUINTET – Coltrane In Tokyo Vol. 2 (1966 / 2LP-1980)

Label: MCA Records – MCA VIM-4630–31

MAPS 9765

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Japan / Released: 1980

Style: Free Jazz, Avant-garde Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded Live at Sankei-Hall, Tokyo, on July 11, 1966.

Previously released on Second Night In Tokyo (ABC Impulse! ‎– YB-8508–10-AI / 3LP-1977)

Album Photography : Tadayuki Naitoh

Album Designed by Hisashi Tominaga

Manufactured By – Victor Musical Industries, Inc.

Matrix / Runout (A-Side Run Out): VIM-4630 - 9765A-1

Matrix / Runout (B-Side Run Out): VIM-4630 - 9765B-2

Matrix / Runout (A-Side Run Out): VIM-4631 - 9765A2-1

Matrix / Runout (B-Side Run Out): VIM-4631 - 9765B2-2

A  -  Afro Blue Part 1 ...................................................................................... 21:50

B  -  Afro Blue Part 2 ...................................................................................... 17:30

C1 - Introduction To Crescent ........................................................................ 13:10

        (Solo By Jimmy Garrison)

C2 - Crescent Part 1 ...................................................................................... 12:20

D1 - Crescent Part 2 ...................................................................................... 27:55

D2 - Short Closing Theme : Leo ...................................................................... 1:25

Personnel:

John Coltrane – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone

Pharoah Sanders – tenor saxophone

Alice Coltrane – piano

Jimmy Garrison – bass

Rashied Ali – drums, percussion

JOHN COLTRANE Coltrane In Tokyo Vol. 2 (1980 Japanese MCA rainbow label 6-track double vinyl LP), recorded live during Coltrane's only tour of Japan at the Sankei-Hall in Tokyo on the 11th of July 1966.

The songs on this album are noted for their very lengthy running time, all during which each player takes long, free solos, and sometimes the melody is not even played but only briefly alluded to.

By this point in his career, Coltrane was firmly enmeshed into the avant-garde style of jazz. Sanders, who was an innovator of free jazz, influenced Coltrane's playing through his technical use of overblowing and fierce vibrations of the reed, and this record is remarkable for its use of multiphonics, overtones, and other extended musical techniques from both players.

The surreal marathon of 40-minute opener “Afro-Blue” on this album is by far the longest Coltrane ever recorded. It opens with the well-known head before Coltrane takes a modest soprano sax solo, getting free but restrained, then passing over the reigns to a fervent Pharoah, whose solo takes it to the edge. He wastes no time getting atonal before transforming into a grand, beautiful cascade of multiphonic despair and ecstatic overtones, shrieking for the entire duration of his 12+ minute solo. Alice C.’s piano solo dances freely with ghostly grace and tempered insanity, only to lead into an unbelievable 18-minue solo from Coltrane, whose warped melodicism creates a psychokinetic energy to match the intensity of Pharoahs’s all-out visceral whirlwind. Coltrane’s interaction with Ali is remarkable, the two always feeding off one another and, no matter how free and unrestrained, staying remarkably tight through the windstorm of free-flowing tempo fluctuations, as if their minds were merged in meditation.

After a 12-minute bass intro, Coltrane's song "Crescent" is kicked off, with both saxophones taking ferocious solos during the almost hour-long version. The performance concludes with a short statement of the theme from "Leo", behind the MC's introduction of the band.

Coltrane’s dive into the avant garde is clearly manifested here, as his group goes to the edge to find the zone and suspend themselves there. The level of intensity, longing, and joy that pervades the collective imagination of this recording gives it a towering stature in the jazz world. It is an album with a presence that cannot be ignored by any music fan...

_Review by Kyle Banick

If you find it, buy this album!