BLP 1577

John Coltrane - Blue Train

Released - November 1957

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, September 15, 1957
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, trombone; John Coltrane, tenor sax; Kenny Drew, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; "Philly" Joe Jones, drums.

tk.3 Lazy Bird
tk.6 Moment's Notice
tk.9/8 Blue Train
tk.11 Locomotion
tk.12 I'm Old Fashioned

Session Photos

rehearsal

Photos: Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images / 
https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Blue Train	John Coltrane	15/09/1957
Moment's Notice	John Coltrane	15/09/1957
Side Two
Locomotion	John Coltrane	15/09/1957
I'm Old Fashioned	Johnny Mercer, Jerome Kern	15/09/1957
Lazy Bird	John Coltrane	15/09/1957

Credits

Cover Photo:	FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design:	REID MILES
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	ROBERT LEVIN

Liner Notes

John Coltrane has often been called a "searching" musician. His literally wailing sound-spearing, sharp and resonant creates what might best describe as an ominous atmosphere that seems to suggest (from a purely emotional standpoint) a kind of intense probing into things far off, unknown and mysterious. Admittedly such a description is valid only in a personal way but "searching" remains applicable to Trane in view of actual fact. He is constantly seeking out new ways to extend his form of expression-practicing continually, listening to what other people are doing, adding, rejecting, assimilating - molding a voice that is already one of the most important in modern jazz.

John's "sound" as mentioned in the lead is rather unique. It is certainly his most obvious trademark (similar to Dexter Gordon, his earliest and strongest influence) but has meaning apart from just a "different sound. His way of thinking is at one with his tonal approach. His ideas often seem to run in veering, inconsistent lines appearing at first to lack discipline but, like Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk (two of his closest musical associates, both of whom have been labeled by some as "eccentric" and/or "poorly equipped" instrumentalists) John is aware and in control of what he is doing. What may appear to be suddenly rejected is used, rather, as a basis for further exploration.

Born in Hamlet, North Carolina on September 23, 1926 John began his study of music with the alto horn and clarinet when he was fifteen. Later, after a hitch in the Navy, he played with King Colax, Eddie Vinson (switching to tenor), some spotted gigs with Howard McGhee at the Apollo in New York, Dizzy Gillespie's big band, Lonnie Slappey in Philadelphia, Guy Crosse in Cleveland, Earl Bostic and Johnny Hodges. In 1955 Trane joined the Miles Davis Quintet for what turned out to be more than a year and a half gig and is currently a member of the Thelonious Monk Quartet. (Incidentally, at this writing, the Monk unit was moving into its fifteenth consecutive week at the hip Five Spot in Greenwich Village). Trane feels that working with Miles and Monk have been "invaluable musical experiences." His employment with each of these giants has provided him with an education that most musicians could not acquire in a lifetime. In addition Miles, and now Monk (being of this school themselves) have never inhibited John's musical sense of freedom. He is able to experiment while on the stand with no fear of being called down and with a good chance of being congratulated.

John, though highly self-critical, has broad and varied tastes when it comes to others. His favorites are many; Miles ("His style of playing is very interesting to me. He has a very good knowledge of harmonics and chord structure. I used to talk with him quite often."), Dizzy, Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Joe Gordon, Hank Mobley, Johnny Griffin, Sonny Stitt, Cliff Jordan, Monk ("He plays with a whole range of chords. I had never heard anything like it before and I've learned a lot from him."), Red Garland, Kenny Drew, Phineas Newborn, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones, Paul Chambers, Wilbur Ware, Earl May, Cannonball, Jackie McLean, Jay Jay Johnson, Curtis Fuller and Milt Jackson.

John has recorded previously for Blue Note with Paul Chambers (BLP 1534) and Johnny Griffin (BLP 1559).

Trane selected all the musicians used for this date. Lee Morgan, the exciting Gillespie - Navarro - Brown styled, young trumpet player who made his professional debut with Dizzy Gillespie when he was only eighteen and who, in a fantastically short period of time, has become an accepted front-runner on his instrument is also represented on Blue Note with five of his own albums (BLP 1538, BLP 1541, BLP 1557, BLP 1575 and BLP 1578), and with Hank Mobley (BLP 1540).

Curtis Fuller who, next to Jay Jay Johnson, is for this listener modern jazzdom's top trombonist can be heard on his own LPs (BLP 1569 and BLP 1572) and as a sideman with Bud Powell (BLP 1571) and Cliff Jordan (BLP 1565). His conception continues to mature and increase in potency.

The rhythm section, comprised of Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, is superb. Drew is a blues rooted pianist with a swinging, cohesive technique. Chambers and Jones are known primarily for their sparkling work with Miles Davis. They are both more than familiar with Trane's style having worked with him for an extensive period and assist in brilliant fashion. Paul fronts his own units on BLP 1534, BLP 1564 and BLP 1569 and is with Kenny Burrell (BLP 1523 and BLP 1543), Lee Morgan (BLP 1541), Hank Mobley (BLP 1540) and Sonny Rollins (BLP 1558). Philly Joe has driven the groups of J. R. Monterose (BLP 1536), Chambers (BLP 1534), Clifford Brown (BLP 1526 and Morgan (BLP 1538).

The four impressive originals in this set are by Coltrane. The title number, Blue Train, is a moving, eerie blues. Trane rides swiftly down a lonesome track with Lee and Curtis shoveling extra coal into the boiler near the end of his solo. Lee follows with an energetic statement and is succeeded by a gutty Fuller. John and Lee riff behind Curtis just before he gives way to funky Kenny Drew. Chambers takes a brief but effective solo before the group returns to the theme.

Moment's Notice is a happy romper with expressive solos by Coltrane, Fuller, Morgan, Chambers (bowed) and Drew.

Locomotion, an uptempo blues begins with a rocking drum statement and a unison riff theme with Coltrane taking off on several "breaks" in between the repeated pattern before moving into his actual solo which, like those of Fuller, Morgan, Drew and Jones who follow, is played in a hard, slashing fashion.

I'm Old Fashioned, a pretty, old popular song that was suggested to Trane by a friend is rendered a delicate treatment. Here John is given a chance to display his warm handling of a ballad and shows

himself to be adept with tunes set in any tempo. Curtis, Kenny and Lee are also provided with solo space and their interpretations are sensitive and poignant.

Lazy Bird is faintly reminiscent of Todd Dameron's Lady Bird. After a short piano introduction Morgan (with a brief assist from the other horns), Fuller, Coltrane, Drew, Chambers (with bow) and Jones, take off in that order. Lee returns at the end to ride out over John and Curtis with the theme.

What is perhaps the most striking attribute (among many) about this LP is its free, but not disorganized, blowing mood that has everyone in exceptional form both individually and collectively.

-ROBERT LEVIN

Photos by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT BLUE TRAIN

In the far different world of 1957, jazz labels and jazz musicians were constantly in the recording studios. In the three months preceding Blue Train, Blue Note had cut two Curtis Fuller volumes, a Jimmy Smith jam session that was ultimately spread over two albums, and one album each by Hank Mobley, Paul Chambers, Sonny Clark, Bud Powell, John Jenkins and Lee Morgan. Trombonist Fuller had been virtually living in Rudy Van Gelder’s studio since his East Coast arrival in April, with 16 appearances (six as leader or co-leader) on Blue Note, Prestige and Savoy. John Coltrane made ten sessions (five as leader or co-leader) during the same period.

Blue Train, which on paper might appear to be just another of the era’s small-group dates, was something special. It was quickly hailed as the first definitive recital by Coltrane, whose contributions to the bands of Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk had already made him the most important new voice of the period, and remains second only to A Love Supreme as Coltrane’s most popular album over 45 years later.

Most observers will tell you that what sets Blue Train apart from the many efforts Coltrane produced under his Prestige contract at the time was Blue Note’s approach to recording. Unlike Prestige, Blue Note paid for rehearsals before its sessions, a critical fact given the difficulty of some of the present music. It has also been suggested that Coltrane was not inclined to record his more imaginative originals for Prestige, which insisted on retaining publishing rights, whereas Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff had a reputation for integrity that made the saxophonist comfortable in featuring his best compositions. Another important if less frequently noted factor is the presence of drummer Philly Joe Jones. While Jones appeared on several sessions for Blue Note during the period, and became something of a house drummer for Riverside, he never appeared on Prestige after his November 1956 work with Coltrane and Tadd Dameron on Mating Call, a circumstance that robbed Coltrane of the services of his most compatible percussion associate prior to Elvin Jones.

The other featured soloists on this album have often been maligned. Art Pepper stated the case in the extreme when he noted in a 1977 interview that “The other cats sound ridiculous, like little children after Trane’s solos. He was so cruel on Blue Train. He should have let the rest of the band play before him.” While there are signs of scuffling (Fuller on “Moment’s Notice” is an obvious example), to these ears the sidemen generally acquit themselves well. Lee Morgan, full of teenage fire, was just emerging from the shadow of his Clifford Brown influence; Fuller does powerful work on the title track; and pianist Kenny Drew (whose early Blue Note appearances, including his first album as a leader, are overlooked in Robert Levin’s original notes) keeps the often complex harmonies churning. This rhythm section plus Coltrane had recorded together under Paul Chambers’s name in 1956, and had an undeniable rapport, one choice example of which is the way Drew coaxes Jones into double time on the title track.

Coltrane was clearly playing on another level, however. While never less than exceptional, some of his playing here approaches the superhuman, as a comparison of the two excellent alternate takes (first issued in 1997) with the more familiar and clearly superior masters illustrates. Fuller recently recalled how it was the practice at the time for record companies to select master takes based on the leader’s work, and how he and Morgan looked at each other during Coltrane’s solo on the master of “Blue Train” with the knowledge that they had better play their best here, because this was clearly the keeper.

The writing was even more of a revelation at the time. Only “Straight Street,” from Coltrane’s first session as a leader four months earlier, had hinted at the harmonic and formal challenges of “Moment’s Notice” and “Lazy Bird.” The former, with a modulation every two beats, was immediately acknowledged as a litmus test for modernists, while the rapidly shifting terrain of “Lazy” proved equally challenging. (Rutgers professor Lewis Porter has analyzed the relationship to Dameron’s “Ladybird” as a matter of transposition and foreshortening of the changes.) Attention must also be paid when blowing on “Locomotion,” a blues-with-a-bridge a Ia Lester Young’s “D.B. Blues” (a structure Coltrane first employed a month earlier on “Traneing ln”) with breaks at the start of each solo throwing the musicians another curve.

Blue Train came to be made during Coltrane’s Prestige period because the saxophonist had taken an advance from Alfred Lion a year earlier in anticipation of signing a Blue Note contract that never got executed. Lion attempted to sign Coltrane once again at the close of 1958, but this time he lost out to Nesuhi Ertegun at Atlantic. So Coltrane’s Blue Note discography was limited to three memorable sideman appearances — on Paul Chambers’s Whims Of Chambers, Johnny Griffin’s A Blowing Session and Sonny Clark’s Sonny’s Crib — plus this date for the ages.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2003

Ultimate Blue Train Reissue Liner Notes

In the fertile decade from the mid-fifties to the mid-sixties, there was a proliferation of brilliant albums in jazz. "Blue Train", which Coltrane often referred to as his favorite album of his own work, was more than that; it was a perfect album. The ingredients for such alchemy cannot be quantified anymore than genius can be defined and described. But we know it when we hear it.

In late 1956 or early 1957, John Coltrane went up to Blue Note's offices to ask Alfred Lion for some Sidney Bechet albums (this was four years before he would pick up the soprano saxophone himself). He and Alfred talked about a record deal, but Francis Wolff, who handled the artist contracts, had gone for the day. Coltrane took his Bechet LPs and a small advance, saying that he would come back in a few days. He didn't, and the whole incident seemed forgotten.

In early 1957, Coltrane signed with Prestige Records. But he'd remembered the discussion with Alfred and the advance and insisted upon making an album for Blue Note to honor his commitment. The rhythm section that he selected was pianist Kenny Drew and his bandmates from the Miles Davis quintet: Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. This quartet had recorded "Chambers' Music" the year before in LA under Paul Chambers' name for Aladdin's Jazz West label. It's not known whether it was Coltrane or Alfred Lion who added Lee Morgan and Curtis Fuller, both recent Blue Note sign-ings, to the front line.

Whatever the circumstances, Coltrane enjoyed the Blue Note luxury of paid rehearsals and wrote four brilliant tunes, all of which have become jazz standards. When it came time for the recording, these six empathetic master musicians had a firm grasp of the material at hand. The recording session was pure magic and Blue Note perfection. The music had a rarified air, and everyone's solo was worthy of transcription. Blue Note's greatest achievement was setting up situations in which both perfection and inspiration were attainable AND achieved. "Blue Train" is a classic case in point. Compare it to Coltrane's voluminous output at Prestige that same year.

Curtis Fuller still jokes about "Moment's Notice", which he named because they recorded it under just those circumstances. "I've been with younger musicians trying to work out that tune. And I tell them that that's just how we did it...on a moment's notice." That was Curtis first summer in New York, and Blue Note had not only signed him to his own deal, but also gave him the opportunity to be the only recorded trombone soloist with Trane, Bud Powell and Jimmy Smith.

For this definitive version of "Blue Train", two alternate takes have been added. Both immediately preceded the master take at the session. A word of explanation is necessary about the alternate take of the title tune. The master take, as issued, is take 9 with the piano solo from take 8. While take 8 has some very different and formidable playing, it did not occur to me until recently to restore the piano solo taken out of it and make it a whole alternate take. The actual piano solo from take 9 has not survived, but here we've restored take 8 to its original form, thus repeating the piano solo used on the LP.

This is a most astonishing album that has influenced musicians for 40 years. It's not uncommon to walk into a bar and find a 45 of "Blue Train" parts one and two on a juke box, and regulars who can hum along with every note. This music is eternal. We hope that this enhanced CD with graphics and interviews and improved sound does this monument justice.

- Michael Cuscuna (1996)

Blue Note Spotlight - October 2012

Blue Note Spotlight - October 2012

Maybe it’s the blueness of the cover, or its chamber-like sound, but John Coltrane’s Blue Train, like Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, frequently puts listeners in a reflective mood.

The cover photo of Blue Train, Coltrane’s second album as a leader and the only recording he made for Blue Note, shows the saxophonist seemingly deep in thought, his face, arms and shoulders, and the mouthpiece of his instrument, saturated in a blue chiaroscuro. It’s a profound album cover, probably one of the greatest ever printed.

The session found Coltrane at an important juncture in his career. About four months earlier, he had quit using heroin, and at the time of Blue Train’s recording, he was performing regularly at the Five Spot in New York in Thelonious Monk’s quartet. It’s probably safe to assume that his newfound sobriety, coupled with the influence of Monk’s awkwardly refined sense of harmony, gave Coltrane a lot to think about.

On Blue Train, Coltrane is in very good company. To start, there are his two old bandmates from the Miles Davis Quintet, drummer Philly Joe Jones and bassist Paul Chambers. (Davis had kicked Coltrane out of his group about five months prior to this recording.) Pianist Kenny Drew fills out the rhythm section, while trumpeter Lee Morgan and trombonist Curtis Fuller (the only player from this session who’s still alive) complete the front line.

The title track, a haunting 10-minute blues, establishes Coltrane as one of the great interpreters of the form in jazz. In its starkness, it feels like a nod to the modal music Coltrane would later play, most notably on the 1961 album My Favorite Things. Still, Coltrane solos with lots of notes, using long tones and uneven phrases—and he sounds restless, as though he is trying to keep hold of all the ideas sloshing around in his mind. Morgan enters after Coltrane, with a spare and memorable opener. (He was very good at those. Listen to his solo on the title track of Art Blakey’s Moanin’, a Blue Note release recorded a year later, for another instance.)

On “Locomotion,” the album’s third track, Morgan explodes like a firecracker into a suspenseful, eight-bar break. His ensuing solo is an intricate braid of sound; his phrases never tangle. (Such virtuosity prompted the critic A.B. Spellman to describe Morgan’s performance as “one of the great jazz trumpet solos.”) The trumpeter’s brassy articulation serves as a good foil to Fuller’s smooth, soft-toned lyricism on trombone.

“Moment’s Notice,” another Coltrane original with fast-moving chord changes, presages the recording of “Giant Steps”—Coltrane’s impossibly methodical composition that now exists almost solely for pedagogical purposes—by about two years. “Lazy Bird,” too, which supposedly draws from Tadd Dameron’s “Lady Bird” (which, in turn, draws from the standard “Have You Met Miss Jones?”) is another bellwether of Coltrane’s intensely focused attention to harmony.

And then there is the ballad “I’m Old Fashioned,” the only track on the album that Coltrane didn’t write. It is simply lovely. Coltrane could play very sweetly when he wanted to, and this song marks the musician as a refined and sensitive ballad player—one of the best in jazz.

To call Blue Train a hard bop album, as many have done, sort of misses the point of Coltrane’s singular, and expansive, vision. Coltrane was not a hard bop musician, just like his then-boss, Thelonious Monk, cannot be described as a bebop musician, although he recorded with Charlie Parker, Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie, among others. If you want to try to understand Coltrane, it helps to look atBlue Train almost as a living thing, a signpost indicating some of the many roads he would explore in the 10 years before his early death. But it also exists just fine on its own.

May 2019 - Blue Note Spotlight[edit]

May 2019 - Blue Note Spotlight

In September 1957 while in the midst of finding his own voice on the tenor saxophone in bands led by jazz freedom riders Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane enlisted a band of peers and entered Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack, N.J., studio. With a new spirit rising, Coltrane created Blue Train, a 40-plus-minute masterwork that stands as one of the greatest jazz records of all time. It was only his second album as leader—and his sole recording under his own name for Blue Note Records. Of course, Trane, always the insatiable seeker, went on to launch new rockets of interstellar music—including 1959’s groundbreaking Giant Steps, 1964’s sublime jazz prayer A Love Supreme and 1966’s large ensemble expedition Ascension, which sparked the burgeoning free jazz movement.

But it all started for Coltrane with Blue Train, a pioneering five-song, blues-steeped, hard bop outing that exhilarates with pockets of brawn and poetry, excursions of ferocity and finesse, stretches of blazing velocity and soulful tenderness. By all measures it began as an organic session with four spirited Trane originals and a gorgeous rendition of the Jerome Kern-Johnny Mercer ballad, “I’m Old Fashioned.” But graced by the incantations of inspired improvisation, Blue Train yielded a transcendence that few recordings achieve.

Today, Blue Train permeates the air and sounds as fresh as it did in jazz’s ‘50s golden age. Its richly lyrical tunes are instantly identifiable by longtime listeners as well as aspiring saxophone students. But songs from the album also elicit vague memories from even those uninitiated into the jazz world. The iconic title track, one of Trane’s all-time catchiest themes, could easily pass for comfort background music at a loud party or serve as a quiet-toned dinner jazz companion that won’t upset candlelit conversations.

However, Blue Train is best appreciated, like all jazz recordings, with listening intent attuned to the fine artistry—in this case, the otherworldly quality of Coltrane commandingly searching on his horn for the right notes, the ideal phrasings, the perfect flights, the risk-taking leap of faith into a state of jazz nirvana.

In addition, Blue Train buoys with the instrumental communion within the band—trumpeter Lee Morgan and trombonist Curtis Fuller, both recent Blue Note signings; pianist Kenny Drew; and the dynamic rhythm section from Davis’s classic ‘50s quintet: band mates Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums.

On “Blue Train,” Coltrane’s saxophone exploration is followed by Morgan’s equally questing trumpet speak, then Fuller’s deep-brewed bluesy response. On the jaunty “Moment’s Notice,” Trane speeds on his saxophone but never sounds like he’s in a hurry, creating a brisk dance with the festive help of the rhythm team—Chambers’ pulsing rhythms and Jones’s swinging beats. Both the other uptempo numbers, “Locomotion” (Trane on the first full-gusto solo) and “Lazy Bird” (Morgan leading with a rapturous solo), feature the band members interplaying with jubilant zest. Blue Train stands as a classic example of how collective self-expression overrides posing for the spotlights. This is a session where every note blown on every track is in service to the song.

Coltrane himself recognized the consummate character of Blue Train, later in his career referring to it as one of his favorite recordings. On the 2003 CD reissue of Blue Train, producer and liner note writer Michael Cuscuna called the album “perfect” and the music “eternal,” adding that “the ingredients for such alchemy cannot be quantified any more than genius can be defined and described. But we know it when we hear it.”

More than 60 years after it was conceived, Blue Train continues to marvel.