John Coltrane - Interstellar Space (1974 Japanese Impulse! Stereo Vinyl LP)

John Coltrane - Interstellar Space | Vinyl LP - 1974 Japanese Impulse! Stereo (IMJ-80013, Toshiba-EMI Ltd)

Rashied Ali turned up at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs on 22 February 1967 expecting a full band session. Nobody else came. Coltrane told him it would be the two of them, and they cut the whole thing with no rehearsal, most of it in single takes. What came out was a set of duets for tenor saxophone and drums with no piano or bass underneath, four pieces each named for a planet, most of them topped and tailed by Coltrane ringing a set of sleigh bells. "Mars" opens at full tilt and barely eases off. "Venus" drops right back, Ali on brushes while Coltrane worries at a single phrase. The session came a week after the date that produced Stellar Regions and five months before Coltrane's death in July, and it is about as deep into open playing as he ever got on tape.

The tapes sat in the vault for seven years. It was Alice Coltrane, with producer Ed Michel, who assembled the duets and released them on Impulse! in September 1974. Reaction split down the middle. Some found the record too abstract to follow next to the classic quartet, others heard a last, unguarded statement from a musician at the edge of what he could do. Time settled the argument. Interstellar Space is now considered a masterpiece. This is the 1974 Japanese Impulse! stereo pressing, manufactured by Toshiba-EMI, gatefold with the original LP-sized insert and Masahiko Yuh's liner notes.