John Coltrane – Blue Train (1957)

I've listened to some jazz in my life, but it was only a couple of years ago that I got very excited about jazz again and started buying classic jazz albums. I didn't really have that many of them and I felt like owning a nice collection of classic jazz vinyl records was something I should have. John Coltrane's Blue Train is one of those albums I bought. My vinyl is a new version with slightly modified album cover and probably the songs have slightly different sounds as well, but I'm not too fussy about things like that. I just think it's great to be well educated with stuff like this and I genuinely enjoy placing the needle on a record. That little scratching sound makes jazz sound much more authentic. That's why I want to go for vinyl even though CDs would be much cheaper. This album is John Coltrane's only Blue Note album where he's the band leader.



John Coltrane had played in Miles Davis' band before this album and he's collaborating with the same musicians he had played with on Davis' albums. The songs on this album are incredibly well played. Many of the songs have fast tempo and you can really enjoy the skills of the individual players because of the amount of great solo sequences. Stylistically, this album is hard bop, which was the jazz style that was popular in the mid-50's when this album was released. John Coltrane's style is somewhat different to that of Miles Davis. He's playing a lot more. The songs have complex and fast melodies, where Davis was more focusing on setting the mood just right.

The groove on this album is quite amazing. I want to imagine myself to a jazz club somewhere in America listening to a band like this. Hearing a band like this play would definitely be a thing to remember. I don't think many modern jazz bands can claim to play as well. It's probably because jazz isn't the biggest thing in the music world anymore.

The title track Blue Train's intro is a classic and I think it's been used over and over again by different musicians. The bass lines in this song are quite amazing. As a bass player I realise how difficult it is to come up with walking bass lines like this. Moment's Notice has some amazing solos. The most noteworthy and the most peculiar of them is the bass solo played with a bow towards the end of the song. I'm not that used to hearing solos like this in jazz, but it would be great to hear more stuff like this. Locomotion probably shows the greatest skills of John Coltrane as a saxophonist. It moves effortlessly through incredibly fast tempo melodies. I'm Old Fashioned slows the tempo down a bit. This is the kind of music they always play in the movies. Whenever I'm playing jazz records at home, I like to think of these films and sip whisky in a mood lighting. Lazy Bird ends the album with another song filled with amazing saxophone solos.

John Coltrane isn't called a legend for nothing. His saxophone playing can hardly be matched by almost anyone else in the world. Also the rest of the band on this record is phenomenal.

Listen to the album on Spotify.