The Night: Jazz

On this episode of The Night: Jazz we focus on a series of nights tenor/soprano saxophone player John Coltrane performed in November 1961 in the Village Vanguard Club in New York City. Over the years, various parts of these recordings have appeared on record and CD, but in 1997 the complete collection was released in a box.

You will be listening to the outcome with Eric Dolphy on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, McCoy Tyner on piano, Reggie Workman and Jimmy Garrison on bass, Elvin Jones and Roy Haynes on drums and of course John Coltrane on soprano and tenor saxophone.

After this intensive listening, hopefully, you will have some energy left for the performances Coltrane and his quartet gave at the Newport Jazz Festivals of 1963 and 1965 respectively. His playing became more and more intense over the years, and there were persistent rumours that Coltrane had become addicted to LSD. Coltrane passed away two years after the last performance you are going to listen to, when he was only 40 years old.