condition (record/cover): NM / NM
Insert included. No obi.
May 1957, and a tenor player who had just been fired by Miles Davis walks into Rudy Van Gelder's living room to make his first record as a leader. Coltrane catches him at the exact hinge: the bop vocabulary is fully in place, the tone is already enormous, and the compulsive vertical shredding that would define the next few years is starting to show through the seams. Red Garland and Paul Chambers supply the Miles-band rhythm section, "Bakai" brings in an Eastern-tinged modal feel years ahead of schedule, and the ballad "Violets For Your Furs" is a reminder that this man could always play a melody straight when he chose to.
Japanese Prestige pressing, excellent surfaces. The beginning of the whole story, and a very fine hard bop record on its own terms.
