Meditations (John Coltrane album)

Meditations is a 1966 album by John Coltrane. The album was considered the "spiritual follow-up to A Love Supreme."[6] It features Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders as soloists, both playing tenor saxophones. This was the last Coltrane recording to feature his classic quartet lineup of himself, bassist Jimmy Garrison, drummer Elvin Jones and pianist McCoy Tyner (augmented here as a sextet with Sanders and second drummer Rashied Ali), as both Jones and Tyner would quit the band by early 1966. Sanders, Ali, Garrison and Coltrane's wife Alice would comprise his next group.

Meditations
Coltrane is depicted in an orange-tinted photograph playing his saxophone with Jimmy Garrison on bass visible in the background. In orange, "MEDITATIONS" is written at the top of the sleeve followed by "JOHN COLTRANE" in yellow.
Studio album by
ReleasedAugust 1966[1]
RecordedNovember 23, 1965
StudioVan Gelder (Englewood Cliffs)
GenreFree jazz, avant-garde jazz
Length40:31
LabelImpulse!
A-9110
ProducerBob Thiele
John Coltrane chronology
New Thing at Newport
(1966)
Meditations
(1966)
Live at the Village Vanguard Again!
(1966)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[5]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz[3]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide[4]

Alternative versions of tracks 2–5 had been recorded in September 1965 by the same musicians minus Rashied Ali and Sanders. They were later issued as First Meditations (for quartet) in 1977.

Track listing edit

All tracks are written by John Coltrane.

Side one

  1. "The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost" – 12:51
  2. "Compassion" – 6:50

Side two

  1. "Love" – 8:09
  2. "Consequences" – 9:11
  3. "Serenity" – 3:28

Personnel edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Billboard". 20 August 1966.
  2. ^ AllMusic review
  3. ^ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 291. ISBN 978-0-14-103401-0.
  4. ^ Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 47. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
  5. ^ Larkin, Colin (2007). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195313734.
  6. ^ Kahn, Ashley (2007). The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. pp. 178-179. ISBN 978-0393330717.