September 23 – John Coltrane‘s birthday – and this year we have a real bonus – Blue World, a bona-fide “lost masterpiece” (following, incidentally, on last year’s lost masterpiece, Both Directions At Once – Coltrane’s transcendent music – the gift that keeps on giving!
Blue World was recorded with his classic Quartet ( McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums) at Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey on June 24, 1964 — a few weeks after the quartet put the finishing touches on their album Crescent, and a few months before the legendary A Love Supreme
The genesis of the album came earlier in the year when Coltrane was approached (via a personal connection with Jimmy Garrison,) by Canadian (Québécois) filmmaker (and hard-core Coltrane fan), Gilles Groulx who wanted him to provide music for the soundtrack for his film Le chat dans le sac (The Cat in the Bag). Coltrane agreed and recorded with his quartet a thirty-seven minute session. As it turned out, only ten minutes of it was used in the film. The rest has remained unheard, undiscovered – until now!
Here‘s more background on the story from Rolling Stone
Here’s a report on the rediscovery of the tapes from NPR
The album is somewhat unusual for Coltrane since it consists mainly of new versions of previously-recorded tracks. It comes out this Friday.
More on Coltrane on The Allen Ginsberg Project – here