i don’t listen to jazz nearly as much as i did when i was younger, but this release caught my eye, and it certainly ranks as one of the most important finds in recent memory. these recordings were recently discovered in the possession of the family of coltrane’s first wife, Naima. whether or not they were actually intended to be eventually released as an ‘album’ is up for debate (the excellent liner notes dig into this topic quite deeply, if you are interested). regardless, the material is quite stunning. the title comes from a conversation he had earlier with fellow saxophonist wayne shorter, describing his approach to music as ‘like starting a sentence in the middle, and then going to the beginning and the end at the same time, both directions at once’. what we have here is what became known as coltrane’s ‘classic quartet’ (mccoy tyner on piano, jimmy garrison on bass, and of course elvin jones on drums). this was coltrane’s working band from 1962 to 1965, and it could be argued that they were the best all around jazz group of that period. this session, recorded on the afternoon of march 6th 1963, catches them in the middle of this period and in peak form. it was a busy week for the group. that evening they were finishing a two week run at the classic birdland night club in manhattan. the next day they would return to the same studio and record the material which would eventually be released as ‘john coltrane and johnny hartman’.

why would anyone other than a jazz fan consider checking this out? because if you are a fan of the ‘jam band’ genre, then this is a good example of the type of music that inspired a host of rock musicians in the sixties to experiment with improvisation and to think outside of the box when it came to the standard three minute pop format. certainly ginger baker of cream and bill kreutzmann of the grateful dead were huge fans of elvin jones. the dead in particular pointed to the work of artists like coltrane and miles davis when attempting to explain their approach to live music. in kreutzmann’s autobiography, he says that ‘we were able to be completely open and free, without being restricted, without having to play in fours or twos…. we played so loose, it was like water going over a waterfall. it’s just pure nature and beauty and art and it can’t be practiced and it can’t be planned, it just is’.

you will hear a lot of that here. there are two versions available, the standard release and a bonus version. the latter has a second cd of more outtakes of songs from the first disc. i have the bonus version, which totals 90 minutes of music. yes, there are four versions of ‘impressions’ on the bonus version, but they are all very different from each other and yet equally well played. i am so glad this recording has found the light of day.