John Coltrane – Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album

A TAV Curator's Pick.

“Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album is a studio album recorded by saxophonist John Coltrane for Impulse! Records that was first released in 2018. The recordings were made in 1963 during Coltrane's Classic Quartet period and were lost for decades. On March 6, 1963, Coltrane and his Classic Quartet—including double bassist Jimmy Garrison, drummer Elvin Jones, and pianist McCoy Tyner—entered Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey and recorded a session that was lost for decades after its master tape was destroyed by Impulse Records to cut down on storage space. The seven tracks making up this album survived as a copy Coltrane gave to his wife. The standard issue of the album includes one recording of each track and expanded deluxe editions include multiple takes, including several of the title track from Impressions. – Wiki

“Experimenting with technical tricks, assuming different voices, and meeting different material on its own terms fascinated Coltrane. Both Directions At Home, in its odd pluralism, speaks to Coltrane’s humility as a stylist, and the reason why he is revered by jazz fans of all persuasions, including anyone who only knows the bare minimum number of albums. If it’s not Giant Steps, the album that type of casual Coltrane fan knows is A Love Supreme. Both Directions at Once isn’t definitely isn’t Supreme, but it enhances our understanding of how that group of musicians came to make it.” - Spin

“Slow Blues” is the one. There is no narrative here, as there sometimes was with Coltrane’s originals; it is not expressly about love or hardship or religious joy. But Coltrane turns himself inside-out. First, he phrases in bare, hesitant strokes, using negative space; then he begins to whip phrases around, repeating them up and down the horn in rapid, shinnying patterns, reaching for inexpressible sounds, getting ugly. (McCoy Tyner’s solo, directly following Coltrane’s, is tidy and elegant, thorough in its own radically contrasting way.) There is the idea of the “new,” and then there is something like this track, which transcends the burden of newness.” – Pitchfork

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