John Coltrane - First Meditations (Impulse)

Nearly 250 ROW entries to date and for my part not a single Coltrane pick amongst them. There’s a simple reason for it: Coltrane remains a perilous listening proposition. His is a catalog of oceanic import and much of it masks an inescapable undercurrent. Just dipping an ear into the shallow end can effectively sweep a listener out to sea, to be lost for days, weeks, even months. Consequently, lengthy lacunae exist in my Coltrane listening history. I’ll go prolonged stretches without spinning any of the hundred or so discs at my disposal, precisely because exposure compels immersion. On the occasions that I do succumb, this album is usually my first stop in the marathon that inevitably follows. Coltrane revisited the material with Pharoah Sanders and Rashied Ali added, but I prefer this protean version with the core quartet despite obvious stylistic tensions in the band. “Love” alights on a cascading tenor lead, Coltrane soaring and surging forward flanked by Elvin’s powerful mallets and cymbals. It’s one of the most affecting pieces of music I’ve ever heard. The straining tear-inducing dirge “Compassion” contains the blueprint for David S. Ware’s entire career and that’s no slight intended toward the younger saxophonist. The same could probably be said for hundreds of other tenormen. It’s also my favorite Coltrane performance. Jimmy Garrison’s domination of the concluding alternate of “Joy” feels lopsided in one sense, but it’s a rare studio instance of the latitude Trane accorded him more often in concert and winsome experience because of it. Hard to fathom why such beauty as this lay ensconced in a metal can for a dozen years.