02/12/12: John Coltrane - First Meditations (for quartet) (1977)

02/12/12: John Coltrane - First Meditations (for quartet) (1977)

1. Love
2. Compassion
3. Joy
4. Consequences
5. Serenity
6. Joy (alternate version)

     I am going to be honest. I love Jazz but I am not thourougly educated in this genre of music nor do I have a wide group of Jazz musicians I listen to. John Coltrane and Miles Davis are the majority of Jazz music I have listened to and enjoyed. First Meditations was originally recorded in 1965 but was released posthumously in 1977. It was the last recording session with the John Coltrane Quartet and was never released due to the fact that he rerecorded this suite of songs 2 months after as a six piece as he added tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and Drummer Rashied Ali. Those sessions were released as the more well known album "Meditations" (will listen to this abum soon) in 1965.
     From what I've read, the rerecorded "Meditations" is much more avant-garde than this version.  I had never listened to this album thoroughly but it was enjoyable. Coltrane is exclusively on tenor sax on this album. He plays a lot of pretty lyrical sections making for a fairly straightforward jazz album coupled with the occasional explosion of crazy overblown notes and a more avant-garde sound at other times. I feel that the songs actually live up to the song titles for the most part. I found this to be a good work album. It was for the most part a peacful jazz album. It gets out there but its not over the top and still easy to follow. I will be listening to a bit more jazz in this project. Maybe I'll learn some things and actually have intelligent things to say about Jazz. (043)