Lost John Coltrane Recording From 1963 Will Be Released June 29th

Just pulled the trigger on the deluxe 2LP set. Impatiently waiting.... .... .... ....

 

A friend just pointed me in the direction of this website that documents a 2005 auction that was going to auction off a collection of tapes from the Coltrane estate. After skimming the document, there doesn't appear to be any mention of the Both Directions at Once session, though it's interesting that Impulse caught wind of the auction and ordered that the auction not take place. So it would appear that the Both Directions at Once tape was not part of this rather large collection of tapes formerly in Coltrane's possession. I wonder what the story is of how the BDAO tape was found? Is that story out there anywhere now?

Abstracts of Papers

 

It’s there. Beginning with Tape AA10.

 

Oh wow, I didn't see it referred to by album title and I'm not familiar with the track titles. Well then, maybe it took Impulse several years to gain possession of the tapes, maybe that's why it's taken so long for this to be released. Or maybe it didn't take too long for them to get them and they waited all this time for marketing reasons? Or maybe it took someone who thought they were really good hearing them to motivate them to release them? Who knows. Interesting anyway.

I'm also assuming that the more recent previously unreleased "bonus material" reissue of ALS came from this tape collection as well?

 

Well, he does play the "Kashmir" riff here at 8:15:

 

Sounds like there was a threat of litigation to end the auction. I imagine that took some time to work out.

And yeah, when the A Love Supreme The Complete Masters art came out, they announced that the newly discovered content came from Coltrane’s reference tapes.

I would buy a complete set of these tapes.

 

So this is what the NYT said about the "discovery" of the tapes:

"The family of Coltrane’s first wife, Juanita Naima Coltrane, recently discovered his personal copy of the recordings, which she had saved, and brought it to the label’s attention."

I suppose the word "recently" has a very broad definition here, as it's now clear that the family (and Impulse) knew of the tapes since at least 2004.

 

Yeah man, I know context isn't important to a lot of (most?) people, but he story behind a recording really enriches the listening experience and gives it more meaning for me. I'd still love to know why this session was never released before now...not that one explanation or another would take anything away from the music, of course.

 

It's been reported elsewhere (links in this thread, I believe, this is where I would've seen it) that the tapes for this release were discovered in 2004. So I think the NY Times reporter was fudging a bit on the "recently."

 

Ok, looks like @Johan1880 posted this on page three, missed that.

 

I’d be happy with the single LP especially with the stunning cover. But amazon has it for $26, and the 2LP for $33. $7 difference, I might as well get the deluxe.... hoping maybe the single LP will drop a little

 

I'm not sure if this has been posted but Gilles Peterson on BBC radio played Nature Boy from this on his show last Saturday

BBC Radio 6 Music - Gilles Peterson, Zed Bias

 

Yeah, huge question about the reel-to-reel copies; I haven't seen any info (yet) on how the commercial reels will be created. Even if they only made like 100 of them, I doubt they'd play that "master" seven-inch tape over and over again to produce each commercial reel, which would probably mean they'd either make a new "master tape" for creating the reels as an in-between mastering step (which would keep the all-analog chain but produce a generation loss) or convert it to digital and make the commercial tapes from that. Either way, I'd say that product is not for the audiophile...quite ironic considering the price tag.

 

A 1:1 submaster cut from the tape and used for duplicating 100 tapes at 1:1 would produce an audiophile-acceptable product. But it depends on whether they use a good, calibrated, chain and good hardware.

 

"Nature Boy" starts around 44:00.

 

There'd still be a generation loss in that scenario...in theory...whether it would be audible or not is certainly subjective.

 

Sure, but fine right now one would be able to hear it without a direct A to B comparison, and possibly not even then.

 

Promo copies were received by some folks today. Not me

 

This is my favorite period of Trane.

 

Would of put a pre-order in straight away on vinyl, but then noted it was on the Impulse label. I bought a recent-ish reissue of "A Love Supreme" on US import from Impulse, biggest pile of junk ever. Had a high pitch whine going all the way through it, even inbetween the tracks,

May have to sit this one out until reviews come in here, especially if different plants and pressings/cuts are used between the US and the UK/Europe (I hate when that happens, as generally the UK/Europe miss out)

 

Can't wait to hear this!

 

I purchased that LP too. It’s was pressed at United. My copy was terrible. The good thing about this LP is that it was pressed at QRP. Night and day difference in pressing quality.

 

I was prepared for this to be broom sweepings off the studio floor, but the sample served up in the NY Times article is really excellent. I especially love McCoy Tyner's piano on this. Deluxe 2CD set ordered, hurrah!

 

Funny because all recent "unearthed" Trane music is from the personal 7 1/2 ips tape dubs that Van Gelder made for John Coltrane from the 15 ips master tapes. Trane got to keep these to review the sessions' performances and help choose versions for albums. Some earlier recordings seemed to have gone to his first wife Naima and later ones went to Alice. Beyond that, when Trane died, Bob Thiele at Impulse gave Alice some master tapes for "safe" keeping.
Of course, infamoulsy, when ABC-Dunhill moved to the West Coast from NYC they made copies of Impulse masters they felt could deteriorate, but in quite a lot of cases, threw out the originals to save doubling up on space. On the ALS remaster in 2002 Impulse had to get a dub from EMI. The original master tapes of ALS were a victim. Worse still, the dub from 1971 had added equalization and compression and a flaw in the left channel during the first three minutes of Pursuance.
Getting the EMI tape without the flaw, equalization and compression was a Godsend for the deluxe CD version issued in 2002, but the EMI tape was still 2nd generation.

 

The fact they selected Quality Records to press it hopefully gives some indication that it was mastered with some care.