Duke Ellington & John Coltrane - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (1976 Japanese Impulse! Vinyl LP Gatefold)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: VG+

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Duke Ellington & John Coltrane - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane | Vinyl LP Gatefold - 1976 Japanese Impulse! Reissue (YS-8503-AI, Nippon Columbia)

There were no charts on the date. Bassist John Lamb, who was present at the session, recalled that Ellington and Coltrane sat together at the piano bench without talking. Ellington would hum something, Coltrane would listen, and after a few minutes they'd get up, walk to their positions, and start playing. The rhythm section had to figure out the key for themselves. What came out of six to eight hours at Van Gelder was seven tracks that sit closer to a Coltrane-plays-Ellington concept than a true collaboration. Ellington feeds chords, stays economical, and gives Coltrane room. "In A Sentimental Mood," the 1935 standard, opens the album and remains its most celebrated moment. Coltrane plays the melody on tenor with a tenderness that's hard to reconcile with the ferocity of his Village Vanguard recordings from the year before. "Take The Coltrane" (Ellington's pun, Ellington's blues) shifts gears into uptempo hard bop with Garrison and Elvin Jones driving underneath. "Big Nick," Coltrane's only composition here, is a tribute to tenor saxophonist Big Nick Nicholas, played on soprano with a playful, whimsical quality that catches Ellington in an unusually laid-back mode.

Side B opens with Billy Strayhorn's "My Little Brown Book," the piece several critics have called the album's true peak, with Coltrane playing the ballad over Bell and Woodyard's lighter swing feel. "Angelica" moves back to Garrison and Jones for another Ellington original, and "The Feeling Of Jazz" closes with the Ellington rhythm section in a relaxed, walking groove. The alternation between rhythm sections gives the album two distinct textures without disrupting its flow.

This is the January 1976 Japanese reissue on YS-8503-AI, made by Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. as a limited edition of 20,000 copies in a gatefold sleeve. Note the label misprint on side one: "Duke Kllington."