Museum Musica

USA, 1961, modal jazz

John Coltrane – Olé Coltrane: We’ve got McCoy Tyner as piano player and part composer on this one. That’s the only name I recognize (so far), other than Coltrane himself. I’m not a jazz expert, but damn that first track (side A, 18 minutes) blows away the next two tracks (side B). It’s like night and day. The styles seem so different. That playful almost folkish flute at the beginning? That droning, evocative bass? To my untrained ears, the title track is just so different from the following tracks, which strike me as cooler (in the jazz sense) and smoother, more what I’d expect. I like the unexpected and anything that leans toward the more experimental, so the first track is what clinches this album for me.