In addition to being bandmates within
Miles Davis
' mid-'50s quintet,
John Coltrane
(tenor sax) and
Red Garland
(piano) head up a session featuring members from a concurrent version of
the Red Garland Trio
:
Paul Chambers
(bass) and
Art Taylor
(drums). This was the second date to feature the core of this band. A month earlier, several sides were cut that would end up on
Coltrane
's
Lush Life
album.
Soultrane
offers a sampling of performance styles and settings from
and crew. As with a majority of his
Prestige
sessions, there is a breakneck-tempo
bop
cover (in this case an absolute reworking of
Irving Berlin
"Russian Lullaby"
), a few smoldering
ballads
(such as
"I Want to Talk About You"
and
"Theme for Ernie"
), as well as a mid-tempo romp (
"Good Bait"
). Each of these sonic textures displays a different facet of not only the musical kinship between
Garland
but in the relationship that
has with the music. The
-heavy solos that inform
"Good Bait,"
as well as the "sheets of sound" technique that was named for the fury in
's solos on the rendition of
found here, contain the same intensity as the more languid and considerate phrasings displayed particularly well on
"I Want to Talk About You."
As time will reveal, this sort of manic contrast would become a significant attribute of
's unpredictable performance style. Not indicative of the quality of this set is the observation that, because of the astounding
solo works that both precede and follow
-- most notably
Blue Train
-- the album has perhaps not been given the exclusive attention it so deserves. ~ Lindsay Planer