John Coltrane
My Favorite Things

I believe the main path to love - loving a person or a music genre - is to have a pure and selfless desire (I emphasize SELFLESS). After that, it takes a pinch of intelligence and luck to find the "right" encounter.
This brief moral/philosophical introduction is to say that I consider this album an excellent way to approach jazz, if you truly desire it. I would like to compensate by suggesting this work, with that pinch of intelligence and luck...(forgive me the ramblings prompted by an indomitable passion)

John Coltrane is famous even among non-jazz enthusiasts. Rightly so, I say. He is an absolutely exceptional artist, with a story unfortunately not long (he died too young in 1967, at only 41 years of age), who, after a long and highly respectable "apprenticeship" with artists of the caliber of Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, found his spiritual and musical path starting from the blessed year of 1957, when he recorded, in a fortunate month of September, his first mature work "Blue Train" and participated - making it memorable - in the recording of "Sonny's Crib" by the ill-fated pianist Sonny Clark.
I leave the technical aspects to the saxophonists, more suited than I - a guitarist - to highlight them. I limit myself to saying that this wonderful album marked the beginning of a new life for the soprano sax in jazz, after the era of Sidney Bechet in the '30s and '40s.

The quartet is not yet the "historic" one of the sixties, Jimmy Garrison on bass is missing, played here - with impeccable swing, robust sound, and rhythmic and improvisational mastery - by Steve Davis, who despite this credential did not have an appropriate career. The pianist is McCoy Tyner and on drums - cannon shot - Mr. Elvin Jones. Friends, these are masters who have a spine-tingling touch on their respective instruments, sometimes discreet or gritty accompanists, and exciting soloists. Those lucky moments that sometimes happen in the recording studio... thank heavens!

Alright, I'll get to the gist and will try to limit the superlatives.
In 1960 John Coltrane chooses to record a record of standards "reinterpreted" in his own way, post-Giant Steps, and it can be heard in "But not for me" and "Summertime".
The selection is of only four tracks, lasting about forty minutes. Two tracks will be played on tenor sax, the other two with the soprano, a gift from Miles Davis that dazzled John.
The suspended piano of Tyner opens the dance: the title-track "My favorite things", almost a 3/4 nursery rhyme from a sappy movie yet the work of a great duo of composers, becomes a masterpiece of melancholy, hieratic and dreamy. Then enters the soprano, surprisingly, and it's impossible to stop. Theme, chilling piano solo, sax solo, and final theme, while Elvin Jones' dancing drums hold everything with never-the-same lightness. Over thirteen minutes, but how can such a track end? Yet the second track starts, still on soprano sax: a Cole Porter ballad "Everytime we say goodbye", where the solo is almost a simple counterpoint to the theme delivered with moving delicacy and intensity. Impossible to avoid goosebumps, memories of an almost missed encounter, the thought of a dear person we miss...
But off we go, relentless and surprising, John picks up the tenor and the third track begins, "Summertime", a challenge, an almost sacred track tackled with irreverent love, the only "difficult" track for the neophyte, but framed by so many emotions it can lead him to appreciate even the most complex jazz - seemingly - for open and daring harmonies and structures. On a not very fast tempo, Coltrane's harmonic substitutions spin, up to a shout-inducing exchange on low notes piano/bass/drums, turn up the volume and your windows will tremble as when listening to "Master of Puppets" (I'm not joking, my friends, listen to believe...).
Then, now at the end - but what end? It can't end... - the last track, "But not for me", again Gershwin, again Coltrane's substitutions. There's still something to say, it seems the four musicians sing, there's the fruitful solitude of inspiration, there's that love that hurts but brings joy, there's someone who will listen to us and understand, even if not now, even if "not for me" that would need it now...but nevertheless, they play with all their soul and you can feel it and almost see it.

I'm done... I'm almost crying, this review cost me effort, but it served me, and I only hope that at least one of the readers feels the desire to know this immense artistic work, accomplished and perfect. For me, one of the masterpieces of Coltrane, of Jazz, and of music of all time.

Peace to all.