Coltrane was nine months away from death at 40 when this music was recorded, a year after he had dissolved his breakout quartet including McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones. Previously undiscovered, and co-produced by Ravi Coltrane and writer Ashley Kahn, this 90-minute inferno was recorded in Coltrane’s Philadelphia home town in November 1966 – with his wife, Alice, on piano, Pharoah Sanders on second sax, and a battery of percussionists. Coltrane is pushing his ideas and the vocabulary of the sax ever further out, with minimalism-influenced fragments repeated and spun like mantras, church music melted into lava-flows of raw sound, and episodes where he simply hollers hoarse, wordless chants. The famous Naima is bagpipey and imploring, the gospelly Crescent builds to wild, frenetic tenor patterns, and My Favourite Things edges out from Rashied Ali’s drum storm. It’s probably not the place to start with Coltrane, but fascinating for the well-versed – and includes an informative 24-page booklet with rare photos and extensive notes and interviews by Kahn.
