Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Introduction And Announcements
2. One Down, One Up
3. Announcements
4. Afro-Blue

Disc 2:

1. Introduction And Announcements
2. Song Of Praise
3. Announcements
4. My Favorite Things

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4411 in Music
• Released on: 2005-10-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Live, Original recording remastered

Album Description
Coltrane and his legendary band--McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums--regularly played at downtown New York's Half Note in the mid 1960s. The group used the club's flexible set times to accommodate Coltrane's musical suites and far-reaching improvisations. As Half Note founder Mike Canterino said, "I just wanted the music and to let the guys go ahead and do what they want to do."

The importance of these influential performances has grown throughout the years as musicians--especially saxophone players--passed around bootleg and lo-fi copies taken from the 1965 radio broadcast. It was a time when Coltrane was pushing his musical boundaries, and one can hear the evolution of his style on these recordings. As his son Ravi Coltrane says, "You can hear everything that came before and begin to hear where the music was going."

The music captured on One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note features the songs "One Down, One Up" (perhaps the highlight of the collection), "Afro Blue," "Song of Praise," and "My Favorite Things." The unparalleled performances showcase a band filled with fiery passion and a master at the crossroads of his musical path.

One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note features liner notes from journalist and author Ashley Kahn, who wrote A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album as well as the upcoming The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records. Also included is an essay by the CD's producer, Ravi Coltrane.

Amazon.com
Having recharged his legendary status on 2005's spectacular Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane: At Carnegie Hall, a previously unheard "lost" recording from 1957, the late John Coltrane solidifies his refreshed standing with a new generation of jazz fans with this exciting discovery by his own quartet. Recorded in 1965 at New York's Half Note club, One Down, One Up isn't as stunning a find as the Monk album. Its recorded sound, taken from a radio broadcast, is pretty raw and, whereas the Monk album represents a rare meeting of these giants, there are other live albums from the mid-'60s by the Coltrane four. None, however, are as good as this one, which finds the tenor and soprano saxophonist making magnificent mountains out of modal molehills through his relentless surrounding and reshaping of notes, never coming up for air. You don't listen to epic performances like the 28-minute title track, 23-minute rendition of "My Favorite Things" (his bread and butter tune) and 20-minute "Song of Praise" so much as immerse yourself in them. You simply need to experience them for their rising intensity and spiritual weight, for their earthy beauty, for the band's locking gears: pianist McCoy Tyner's ferocious hammered notes, drummer Elvin Jones' whirlwind figures, bassist Jimmy Garrison's eloquent lines. Thriving on melody, which he would abandon in the sonically assault live final phase of his sadly shortened career, Coltrane keeps listeners in the palm of his hand even as he pushes into unchartered territory. --Lloyd Sachs

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Customer Reviews

Success in the Search for Sounds Unheard - UNBELIEVABLE
This music was previously available on unauthorized releases. It is such an incredible set that over the years it has been held up as an example of excellence in ensemble playing in jazz studies in music departments all over the country. As if that wasn't praise enough (actions speak louder than words), I'm going to add my paltry 2 cents worth on what an incredible find these recordings are and how much, as a semi-pro jazz musician, I enjoy them.

I'm listening to Song of Praise from this set as I type this. First of all, it's just amazing to me that it took about 40 years after Trane's passing to get this out to the public in non-bootleg form. I have an EXTENSIVE Coltrane library that runs from his early days with Miles' quintet in the mid 50's up until the Live In Japan 4 CD set. Some people don't like the later stuff. Some people find the early stuff too tame. This live session gives us Trane, Jones, Tyner, and Garrison at the summit of their work together, smack dab in the middle of the transition from modal playing to free playing. Not too much honking and screaming but there's plenty of multiphonics and harmonics in Trane's playing. It's just fantastic!

I don't get the criticism of Tyner in the review written by Mr Pharaoh's [sic] Wail. Can't hang? That's just ridiculous my uninformed friend. He's a perfect foil here. Even Trane himself disagrees with you in the things he said and wrote after McCoy left the band. If you have studied this man and his music with some bookwork you will know that Trane did not want Tyner to leave his band at all and was upset to loose his long-time friend and accompanist. Do YOU really think you know better than Trane? Of course you don't. All of these guys are playing with incredible intensity on this session. The quartet is in historic, awe-inspiring form here. If you think (Pharoah's [sic] Wail, obviously a Sander's fan) that Tyner is strolling because he can't keep up, you are so wrong. Trane would often ask Tyner to stroll so that he could play with being tied to harmonic constructs, i.e., for the freedom. Trane loved playing with Tyner and vice-versa until Tyner felt the music lost all elements of classic tonality anyway - that just wasn't his thing. But can't keep up? Please, go back to school dude. I like the Sander's stuff too but I would never knock such an incredible musician as McCoy Tyner, he more than knows what needs to be done and executes beautifully throughout this set.

Some have criticized the announcements heard throughout the disc. This does not bother me in the least. It's the same format as that other legendary release from the Portraits in Jazz series recorded at the Half Note. Of course I'm writing about Wes Montgomery's Smokin' at the Half Note. The announcements give the listener a real sense of "being there"

Some have criticized the fidelity of this release. This does not sound any worse than the other live performances out there and it is even better than some of the releases we've had from the 1961 tour of Europe with Eric Dolphy. Speaking of Dolphy - one of the seminal influences of King Crimson Mk I - if you don't own the Complete Village Vanguard you need to go to that link and buy THAT release before spending your money on this fiery jewel.

As a Coltrane LOVER (since 1975) and a serious jazz musician (semi-pro) for the past 30 years or so, I'm well qualified to tell you that this collection from the Half Note is positively stunning and it is well worth the $22.00 or so you are going to pay for it. Buy this at once if you want to expand your Live Coltrane collection. If you don't own any live Coltrane, this isn't the place to start. Come back later.

I DO agree with the reviewer who writes that if you are new to Trane you should start with Live at the Village Vanguard and Live at Birdland. I think you probably also want to add Coltrane at Newport and Afro Blue Impressions to that list of live releases to purchase before this. Then, after purchasing this, move on to Live in Seattle and Live in Japan. They are ALL worth owning and are ALL outstanding.

John & Jimmy take charge. McCoy can't hang.
On this album you take the good with the bad.

On both this and My Favorite Things: Coltrane at Newport, McCoy is an annoyance. Here he is able to warp space and time so that 5 to 7-minute solos feel like an hour. My Favorite Things on this disc is a bit of a throwaway, which isn't something one says very often. McCoy takes an incredibly long and tedious solo, then John comes back in only to be faded out as the radio announcer talks over him until the tracks ends. I find it no coincidence that on this and the Newport mentioned above, the best tracks (One Down here, Impressions there) are without McCoy for about 3/4s of each track.

Here in March and May of '65 Coltrane has moved ahead but McCoy and Elvin are doing what they'd always done, which often feels out of place within the context of John's visions for '65/'66. Five seconds after McCoy lays out altogether in One Down, the tune takes off with Coltrane and Jimmy as co-pilots. Then Jimmy lays out and Coltrane really manhandles this tune, scouring the outer fringes of what was possible on tenor in '65. This is some of the most forward, devious, beautiful stuff he ever played. Even though there must be 15 mins of this as a John & Elvin duo, it's oftentimes not a duo. It's John soloing... playing solely from inside himself while Elvin tries to keep up. John has passages of minutes upon minutes of brilliance here but it seems that had he stopped soloing 10 minutes earlier, Elvin would have been pleased it was over. There's not much give-and-take here. John's playing is visionary while Elvin often seems to be playing because John hadn't stopped yet.

Still, Elvin isn't as big a problem. In '65, McCoy put a damper on almost everything he touched, and this entire album is no exception. That makes this album an essential though mixed bag. John is on fire. His playing on One Down and Song of Praise is heroic. These are why he is thought of as some sort of mystical legend in human form, but god help me, every solo McCoy takes on both discs makes me wish he'd have been sick and not even shown up for the gigs. He was great in earlier years and even handles himself well on Meditations but for the most part he was in dire need of being replaced by Alice well before it happened.

Garrison deserves any praise or respect he receives. He could hang with (and propel) anything John did from '60 to '67. Get this for the individual contributions of John & Jimmy but don't expect a John Coltrane "band" at its pinnacle.

(3.5 stars) Good archival release
An archival concert release that surprised just about everybody when it came out: four very long pieces, recorded with the Quartet, just before Coltrane made the jump into free jazz. The best songs here are quite good: a powerful "Afro-Blue" and an intense, spiritual "Song of Praise" (with a great McCoy Tyner piano solo; Elvin hammers his drums and Trane honks away). It's a bit uneven, though: the extended take on "My Favorite Things" isn't too revealing, and the fact is there are far better versions of the song found elsewhere, and it eventually descends into pure noisemaking for the sake of noisemaking - plus, at 22 minutes, it's far too long: meanwhile, an extended "One Down, One Up" runs its course fairly quickly: for a sharp contrast, see the version found on Dear Old Stockholm. This isn't too bad, and in fact is often quite good, but Live at the Village Vanguard, Newport '63, and Dear Old Stockholm are much better live albums.