Customer Reviews
Visceral - By: pjr, 28 Feb 2008 
By the time of the recordings of these piecesin 1967 John Coltrane was travelling farther & father out into the musical hinterland of free jazz. This set of recordings with drummer Rashid Ali is about as far as you can get. The music here is wild & powerful & at times violent as Ali & Coltrane at times seem to battle for the spacein the music.
This is improvisation of the first order. Coltrane's playing squawks, honks, runs, & stutters its way around the clattering cachophony of Ali's frenetic drumming. Easy listening it isn't. It does seem to be a statement & it is fascinating to wonder where Coltrane would have gone next with his music beacuase listening to this you sometimes conclude that this was something of a final statement. If John Coltrane really was on some kind of musical journey it does seem, listening to this, that perhaps he had arrived.
Excellent - By: kit7635, 25 Dec 2004 Ferocious & luminously beautiful free improvised duets from 1967 with Rashied Ali, swinging like crazy & actually rather acessable. Unforced & wide open, the absence of any third parties to clog the gears gives the music total freedom to breathe & swell, saxophonist Coltrane an effortless stream of soul resonanting shapes & transitions & Ali a blizzard of crashing drums. An amazing recording, with the instrument tones seamlessly stinging & billowy & the recording studio reverberating like a church.
inner journey - By: , 14 Dec 2003 Coltranes last album, to my knowledge. One thing for sure there is a progressionin Coltranes music & it comes from his spiritual journey that he willingly shares. When "I" listen & feel this album I am connected to spirituality & feel the love of God, which I guess was Coltranes experience when recording. Not an album that I listen to everyday, it's a good "top up" & brings me back to a kind of inner peace. Musically it's amazing, truth is there is one sax player & a drummer making layers & layers of inspired sound a totally intimate experience where everything is revealed warts & all.
