John Coltrane Quartet - Crescent (1976 Japanese ABC Impulse! Gatefold LP)

Vinyl: NM
Sleeve: EX
Obi: EX

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John Coltrane Quartet - Crescent Vinyl LP - 1976 Japanese ABC Impulse! Best Collection Gatefold Stereo Reissue

• Five Coltrane originals recorded six months before A Love Supreme, the classic quartet at the height of their collective power and intimacy
  
• Van Gelder engineering at Englewood Cliffs
• 1976 Japanese ABC Impulse! gatefold pressing, released 25 December 1976, manufactured by Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd., with obi and Japanese liner notes

Crescent was recorded at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs across two sessions in 1964, the quartet entering on April 27 and recording what became "Wise One", "Lonnie's Lament" and "The Drum Thing", returning on June 1 to record the title track and "Bessie's Blues". Released on Impulse! in July 1964 as AS-66, the album sits squarely between Coltrane's extended modal period and the full flowering of the spiritual direction that A Love Supreme, recorded six months later in December, would announce to the world. The five compositions are all Coltrane originals, and the album has a quality of unhurried assurance, the classic quartet of McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums operating as a single organic unit beneath Coltrane's tenor. Side A gives Coltrane the foreground across three pieces: the contemplative title track, the modal richness of "Wise One" where Tyner's piano is particularly prominent, and "Bessie's Blues", a blues vehicle that provides some release from the album's prevailing introspection. Side B belongs to the rhythm section. "Lonnie's Lament", which runs to nearly twelve minutes, features no Coltrane solo at all; it is Garrison's bass that carries the long central statement. "The Drum Thing" is an improvisational feature for Jones, with only spare melodic accompaniment from Coltrane and Garrison at its opening and close. The decision to give over an entire LP side in this way, to step back and let the musicians who supported him take the weight, says something significant about how Coltrane understood ensemble music by 1964. Liner notes are by Nat Hentoff and photography by Charles Stewart, whose inner gatefold portrait of Coltrane was also used on the cover of A Love Supreme.

Released in Japan on 25 December 1976 on ABC Impulse! (YP-8576-AI) as part of the Impulse Best Collection series, the same series and the same manufacturer as the Ellington and Coltrane coupling (YP-8573-AI) released the same day, this gatefold pressing is made by Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. and includes obi and Japanese liner notes. Bob Thiele produced and Rudy Van Gelder engineered, as on all the great Impulse! sessions of this period, Van Gelder's recording capturing the quartet with the warmth and spatial clarity that makes his Englewood Cliffs work so consistently rewarding on a quality pressing.