John Coltrane - Expression (1981 Japanese Impulse! Vinyl LP)

John Coltrane - Expression | Vinyl LP - 1981 Impulse!/MCA Japanese Pressing (VIM-5645, Victor Musical Industries)

By early 1967, John Coltrane's working group had changed completely from the quartet that recorded A Love Supreme two years earlier. McCoy Tyner had left, replaced by Alice Coltrane on piano. Elvin Jones had left, replaced by Rashied Ali on drums. Jimmy Garrison remained on bass, the one constant. Pharoah Sanders, who had joined the group as a second saxophonist for the live performances and large-ensemble recordings of 1965 and 1966, appears on one track here. This quartet, with and without Sanders, was the last ensemble Coltrane led. He was suffering from undiagnosed liver cancer and had less than five months to live when these sessions were recorded at Van Gelder Studio.

Expression was assembled from two dates. "Offering" comes from the February 15 session, which also produced the material released decades later as Stellar Regions. "Ogunde," "Expression" and "To Be" come from the March 7 session. "Ogunde" opens the album at three and a half minutes, the shortest track Coltrane recorded in his final years, with his tenor riding a simple, insistent phrase. "Offering" builds from a quiet opening into an extended duo passage between Coltrane's tenor and Ali's drums that AllMusic describes as one of the highlights of these sessions. "Expression," the closing track, sustains ten minutes of unbroken intensity. But "To Be" is the most unusual piece on the album: Coltrane plays flute, Sanders plays piccolo flute, and Alice Coltrane's piano carries the harmonic centre while the two flutes circle each other for sixteen minutes in music that sounds closer to her own solo records than to anything else in John Coltrane's discography.

This is the 1981 Japanese pressing (VIM-5645), manufactured by Victor Musical Industries as part of the Impulse Definitive 1500 Collection series. The insert is missing.