Milt Jackson / John Coltrane - Bags & Trane (1972 Japanese Atlantic Vinyl LP)

Milt Jackson / John Coltrane - Bags & Trane | Vinyl LP - 1972 Japanese Warner-Pioneer Reissue (Atlantic P-6098A, Jazz Age Series)

• The only joint recording by Milt Jackson and John Coltrane, a quintet session with Hank Jones on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Connie Kay on drums, bridging the MJQ and the Miles Davis Quintet
• Recorded in January 1959, three months before Coltrane began the Giant Steps sessions, with two Jackson originals and three standards including Dizzy Gillespie's "Be-Bop"
• Japanese Jazz Age series pressing on Warner-Pioneer, licensed from Atlantic, with insert

The rhythm section on this date is the key to understanding why it works as well as it does. Connie Kay was Milt Jackson's drummer in the Modern Jazz Quartet. Paul Chambers was John Coltrane's bassist in Miles Davis's quintet. Between them, they anchored the two leaders' regular working groups, and Hank Jones on piano was fluent in both vocabularies. The session took place on January 15, 1959, at Atlantic Studios in New York, just a few months before Coltrane would record Giant Steps. The title track opens with a Jackson original, a relaxed, blues-rooted piece where the vibraphone and tenor saxophone trade solos in alternating choruses, the contrast in tone and approach immediately evident. Jackson's phrasing is rounded and melodic, sitting inside the changes. Coltrane's solo builds with a denser harmonic vocabulary, his sheets-of-sound approach already audible but held in check by the tempo and the company. "Three Little Words", the Kalmar and Ruby standard, is taken fast, Jones opening with a brisk piano vamp before the two soloists enter. "The Night We Called It a Day" is the ballad, Jackson alone with the rhythm section for much of the reading, Coltrane entering later with a solo that stays lyrical and restrained.

Side B opens with "Be-Bop", Dizzy Gillespie's composition, the most technically demanding piece on the album and the one where Coltrane cuts loose most visibly, his tenor accelerating through the changes while Kay and Chambers lock into a driving groove underneath. "The Late Late Blues", Jackson's second original, closes the album as a nearly ten-minute slow blues where both leaders stretch out and Jones delivers one of his best solos of the date, blending Jackson's grounded phrasing with Coltrane's expanding harmonic language. The session was supervised by Nesuhi Ertegun and engineered by Tom Dowd. It sat in Atlantic's vault for two and a half years before its release in July 1961, by which time Coltrane's standing had changed entirely.

This is the 1972 Japanese reissue on Warner-Pioneer (Atlantic P-6098A), released as part of the Jazz Age series.