Billboard : 02/17/1962
Spotlight Album of the Week

John Coltrane and his combo created a lot of excitement at New York’s Village Vanguard and here is the unit in all its exploratory style, waxed live at the club last November. Coltrane, on soprano sax (Spiritual and Softly as in a Morning Sunrise), or on tenor (Chasin’ The Trane) blows with the feeling and intensity that has marked his probing style over the past year. Helping him on the date are Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet, and McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones. Declamatory, modern, driving jazz for the real buff.

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Cashbox : 02/24/1962

John Coltrane‘s intense, exploratory jazz style is put to good use for this set cut “live” last November at New York’s Village Vanguard. Disk contains only three bands, but there’s enough interest here for the album to pick up plenty of loot. Two sides, Spiritual and Softly As In A Morning Sunrise, spotlight Coltrane’s soprano sax artistry while Chasin’ The Trane gives him room to blow on the tenor. Top-drawer jazz disk.

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American Record Guide
Robert Levin : October, 1962

Recently a young musician whose considerable talent has always seemed to function of unfortunate necessity, as an asbestos shield against the communication of passion, saw fit to condemn Coltrane‘s music for having no rhythm. A reliable source confirms that this musician is unable to dance.

Of course Coltrane’s group, this last year, has been an object of heated reaction from the impotent and many camps of the establishment. His music has been called anti-jazz. The Down Beat reviews – two of them – were worse than unfavorable. But if Coltrane was not to impose limitations on the continuing growth of his vision and statement at the point where he was still accessible to most and, therefore, acceptable, such reactions were going to be inevitable. Coltrane is now, with Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Eric Dolphy, a primary force of the avant-garde in jazz.

Dolphy, not so incidentally, was a member of Coltrane’s group at the time of this recording, and though his presence is ostensibly subordinate to the leader’s (he solos, in fact, only on one selection) his presence was the group’s animation and special charge. Surely Coltrane, the already established, if dissatisfied, figure, learned as much from Dolphy as Dolphy did from Coltrane and their association was an especially valuable one.

In addition to Dolphy’s impression, Coltrane’s consciousness has obviously been affected and enlarged by the work of Coleman, (more subtly by) Taylor and the music of India, for which he has long expressed a particular interest and inclination. Probably this interest was a factor in his employment of the soprano saxophone which has intrinsic “Eastern” qualities and which he has come to play with surpassing skill.

The three numbers on this LP, Spiritual, Softly As In A Morning Sunrise, and a better than fifteen-minute atonal Coltrane tenor solo with only bass and drums accompaniment on the blues, Chasin’ The Train, are each (and the exceptional rhythm section clearly reflects this) explorations into the acquisition, uses, liberation, and communication of energy. That, I think, is all the verbalization they need be burdened with. They must be listened to and it seems to me impossible that one could go emotionally unextended by such beautiful, open music.

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Charlotte News
Jerry Reece : 04/07/1962

John Coltrane, already considered a giant among jazz men by some critics, is presented in new surroundings on Coltrane ‘Live’ At The Village Vanguard. Only three numbers are included on the album so naturally the explorations are long and sometimes tortured. There’s Chasin’ The Trane, at 15:55, Softly As In A Morning Sunrise at 6:35 and Spiritual at 13:30. Eric Dolphy joins the groups on bass clarinet on the latter and the join efforts seems to be the most successful. McCoy Tyner on piano, Reggie Workman on bass and Elvin Jones on drums furnish the backgrounds.

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HiFi / Stereo Review
Joe Goldberg : June, 1962
Recording of Special Merit

Interest: Coltrane in person
Performance: Passionate
Recording: Good for live

This is the first recording of the currently most controversial small group in jazz, John Coltrane‘s quintet. The set consists of three numbers recorded in November, 1961, at New York’s Village Vanguard (since that time Jimmy Garrison has replaced bassist [Artist24372,Workman). On the first side, Coltrane plays soprano saxophone. It has been said that he wishes to play with as few chords as possible; and on Spiritual, which he found in a songbook, he uses the irreducible minimum of one. It is a brooding, passionate minor theme, which he evokes without ever openly stating in chorus after after hypnotic chorus. More melodic than usual, the solo displays Coltrane’s characteristic fierce intensity.

On bass clarinet, Eric Dolphy abandons some personal cliches, and is lyrically moving in his final few bars, revealing a welcome new facet of his talent. The piece is marred by an overlong McCoy Tyner piano solo, but helped immeasurably by Elvin Jones, the most demanding drummer now playing. Dolphy is absent on Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise, which Coltrane turns into an exercise in the art of creating personal melody from standards. On both pieces, Coltrane proves conclusively that he is the contemporary master of his new instrument.

The second side is devoted to Chasin’ the Trane, a blues not quite sixteen minutes long played on tenor and accompanied only by bass and drums. A furious, atonal excursion, the performance demonstrates Coltrane’s growing involvement with the music of Ornette Coleman, whose short, field-holler phrases he sometimes evokes here. Also evident is Coltrane’s pre-occupation with the music of India. At first hearing, this music may seem formless and repugnant; it demands much at first hearing. But unlike musicians who stay comfortably on the surface, Coltrane is taking the risks that go with creating a new thing.

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Saturday Review
Wilder Hobson : 04/28/1962

The tenor and soprano saxophonist John Coltrane, stalwart of the avant-garde, devotes the soprano to variations on a characteristic spiritual theme in his newest LP, recorded “live” at New York’s Village Vanguard. With him are Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; McCoy Tyner, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; and Elvin Jones, drums. I find this a fascinating and moving work, in which Coltrane’s chromatic subtleties have disciplined beauty and gravity of feeling. Dolphy, for his part, sounds clever and capricious. On the reverse side, Coltrane takes up the tenor saxophone for a fast blues which moves into an agitated free-style clamor where I cannot follow him. In other words, I cannot hear formal developments of interest, and many of the passages strike my ear as an ugliness of sound which I should call extramusical. I would say the same of much of Ornette Coleman‘s latest alto saxophone performances.

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Saturday Review
Martin Williams : 06/16/1962

John Coltrane is the insider’s idea of the “new man” on tenor saxophone, and he has become predominately an experimentally modal, rather than harmonic, player. Impulse A-10 finds him “Live” at the Village Vanguard in New York, on both tenor and soprano sax, and with Eric Dolphy‘s bass clarinet in complement on one number. Spiritual seems a decided departure for Coltrane; his soprano sings its songs with a direct and simply lyricism, a marked contrast from the furiously compulsive virtuosity he has shown previously. The second side of the LP is a long blues, Chasin’ the Train, on which Coltrane leaps directly into the areas of harmonic, structural, and tonal freedom now being explored by Ornette Coleman. The result is more startling than effective, I think, because Coltrane’s playing does not show the rhythmic variety of phrasing and melody that is so compensating in Coltrane’s work. Coltrane’s drummer, Elvin Jones, is very nearly astonishing throughout. He has truly raised the function of jazz percussion from accompaniment and timekeeping to the level of an interplaying, almost polyphonic, percussive voice, participating directly in the music, and the results are something to hear.

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Tan Magazine
On the Records : April, 1962

This album is the result of John Coltrane‘s desire to try recording “live” because of the added freedom of an on-the-job performance. He selected the Vanguard, not only because of the intimate atmosphere of the club, but because of the contact with an audience. With Coltrane are Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; McCoy Tyner, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; and Elvin Jones, drums.

Spiritual, on Side One, is by Coltrane, and is based on an actual spiritual he had run across and that remained in his mind. Its somber moodiness is followed by an intricately descriptive Softly As In A Morning Sunrise, which was included, Coltrane says, “because I like to get a sensible variety in an album. It seems to me to round out the two originals, and I especially liked the swinging by Jones in this particular take.” So do we. Coltrane is again on soprano, and Tyner opens with a brightly relaxed, crystalline solo which leads into an intriguing Coltrane series of thematic variations. On Side Two, Chasin’ The Trane is a blues, not only unwritten, but not even conceived before he played it. Nat Hentoff says, “— here, the whole piece comes newly and unpredictably alive before us. If you can open yourself emotionally to so relentless a self-exploration, you can gain considerable insight into the marrow of the jazz experience and into Coltrane’s own indomitably resourceful musicianship.” It is an unforgettable experience.

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Down Beat : 04/26/1962
Ira Gitler : 2.5 stars

In his first location recording, Coltrane manages to present both sides of his recent history.

Sunrise finds him demonstrating all the cumulative power that he has assembled through is career but more specifically in the last seven years with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and his own quartet. Chasin’ represents his more recent experimentations-at-length that have been labeled by some as “anti-jazz.”

Spiritual, which runs 13 1/2 minutes, is only about two minutes shorter than Chasin’ but seems much shorter by comparison. “When things are constantly happening, the piece just doesn’t feel that long,” says Coltrane in talking about extended improvisation in the liner notes. His point is proved by the two long selections here.

Spiritual is an interpretation by Coltrane of a religious song he had heard. He is quoted as saying, “I feel we brought out the mood inherent in the tune.” If anything, he does have a mood, a definite and very strong emotional climate. He plays soprano, but in his opening solo the soprano’s timbre sounds much like his tenor’s. What he is playing, not which instrument is the important thing.

Dolphy‘s one appearance in the album is unexpectedly short for a live performance but still contains several repetitions of his pet cliché run. He periodically falls back on it, and his solo has no definite direction. In fact, he seems to be playing the same solo, from record to record, these days.

Tyner shows facility, invention and a feeling for the mood set by Coltrane, but at the end of his solo he drones chordally while Jones hypnotizes with his percussion work. Coltrane’s re-entry finds him in the upper register of the soprano for a summation that includes a suspended-ending benediction of beauty.

Sunrise has a fine opening solo by Tyner with Workman and Jones (brushes) really swinging him. The runs at the end of this solo bear a marked similarity to Coltrane’s style. Jones switches to sticks for Coltrane and heightens the intensity. The soprano solo is top-drawer Coltrane: exciting swing, harmonic diversity, and tonal brilliance combined in a driving excursion of great continuity. This is the best track in the album and, at slightly less than 6 1/2 minutes, shows that one needn’t play interminably to communicate.

Chasin’ the Trane, a blues that consumes all of the second side, is more like waitin’ for a train – a 100-car freight train – to pass. Jones’ dynamic drumming is the most arresting thing happening. If you were to take away his backing and leave Coltrane’s solo standing naked, the latter would become more insignificant than it seems. Shakespeare’s “sound and fury” is musically illustrated here.

Coltrane may be searching for new avenues of expression, but if it is going to take this form of yawps, squawks, and countless repetitive runs, then it should be confined to the woodshed. Whether or not is is “far out” is not the question. Whatever it is, it is monotonous, a treadmill to the Kingdom of Boredom. There are places when his horn actually sounds as if it is in need of repair. In fact, this solo could be described as one big air-leak.

Down Beat : 04/26/1962
Pete Welding : 3.5 stars

Recorded in November, 1961, this disc contains a representative sampling of both Coltrane‘s in-person work and his most recent stylistic innovations. It is an interesting collection in that it offers examples of his architectonic approach at its most successful and its disconnect, least-effective poles.

In recent months Coltrane has been engaged in a sort of musical constructivism, shattering and fragmenting his thematic materials only to refashion them along most syntactical lines, exploring at considerable length (and sometimes apparently aimlessly) their melodic and rhythmic potentials to the fullest. In a sense, the process is an extension to their logical limits of elements present in his earlier approach. That it is a daring and perilous technique may be seen in his work here.

The first side presents the approach in its most gripping and fully realized state. The cohesiveness and passionate sweep of his improvisations on his own Spiritual and the Sigmund Romberg staple Softly illustrate the rebuilding process at its most telling. On these pieces there is a continuity and logical flow of a high order that can be appreciated fully only in comparison with the disjointed, inconclusive meanderings that constitute the sprawling solo morass on Chasin’, which takes up the entire second side.

The fault is less in Coltrane than in the task he has set himself. Perhaps the fullest appreciation of the monumental difficulties involved in the approach may be seen in that Coltrane – improviser that he is – often is unable to bring it off, to control and direct it with the strength and sureness of purpose it needs.

In a real sense, the first two pieces, the successful ones, are much less ambitious in scope than is the lengthy Chasin’, and in this lies much of the reason for their success.

They are more interesting melodically, for one thing, and, for another, they are much more closely allied with conventional jazz improvising than is the unorthodox Chasin’, where the interest is primarily rhythmic and emotional. This piece, with its gaunt, waspish angularities, its ire-ridden intensity, raw, spontaneous passion, and, in the final analysis, its sputtering inconclusiveness, seems more properly a piece of musical exorcism than anything else, a frenzied sort of soul-baring. It is a torrential and anguished outpouring, delivered with unmistakable power, conviction, and near-demoniac ferocity – and as such is a remarkable human document. But the very intensity of the feelings that prompt it militate against its effectiveness as a musical experience. It’s the old problem of the artist’s total involvement as a man supplanting his artistry, which is based, after all, to some greater or less degree in detachment.

As for the other participants, their supporting work (for that’s what it is) is excellent throughout, especially that of Jones, whose primary role cannot be too strongly stressed. The rhythm section furnishes Coltrane exactly the solid bedrock he needs for his constructions. Strangely enough, after Coltrane’s solo on Spiritual, Dolphy‘s brief vocal-dominated bass-clarinet segment sounds surprisingly tame, albeit appropriate.

The degree of Coltrane’s striving on Chasin’ in no wise [sic] mitigates the failure in attainment. If anything, the very loftiness of the goal tends to magnify it out of all proportion. It is, however, one of the noblest failures on record.

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Liner Notes by Nat Hentoff

The Man
This newest addition to the collected works of the insatiably exploratory John Coltrane was recorded on November 2 and 3, 1961, at the Village Vanguard in New York. With Coltrane were Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; McCoy Tyner, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; and Elvin Jones, drums.

Coltrane had told Bob Thiele, Impulse’s recording director, that he would like to try recording “live” because of the added freedom of an on-the-job performance by contrast with the formal aura of a recording studio. “I like,” Coltrane said after the taping, “the feeling of a club, especially one with an intimate atmosphere like the Vanguard. It’s important to have that real contact with an audience because that’s what we’re trying to do – communicate.”

The Music
Spiritual is by Coltrane and is based on an actual spiritual he had run across and that had remained in his mind. “I like the way it worked out,” he said. “I feel we brought out the mood inherent in the tune. It’s a piece we’d been working with for some time because I wanted to make sure before we recorded it that we would be able to get the original emotional essence of the spiritual.”

After the somber opening in which Coltrane on soprano saxophone states the brooding theme, he expands reflectively on that keening line, illustrating the passionate lyricism that is at the core of whatever he plays. Worth noting is the further command of the soprano that Coltrane now has. Using both soprano and tenor has presented difficulties because the soprano requires a tighter embouchure, but as this track demonstrates, Coltrane has made the instrument as natural an extension of himself as the tenor. His tone is full and firm and capable of varying textures to add more details to particular moods. Coltrane is followed by Eric Dolphy in one of his characteristic speech-like solos on the bass clarinet. In his case too, his sound has become warmer and he has increased technical flexibility.

McCoy Tyner’s solo demonstrates what Coltrane admiringly refer to as his “fine sense of form and the fresh sound he gets on piano by the way he voices his chords.” Another point that Coltrane makes about Tyner is less evident in this predominantly gentle number, but it does become quite clear in Coltrane’s more churning pieces. “McCoy,” says Coltrane, “has a beautiful lyric concept that is essential to compliment the rest of us.” To which observation might be added the impression that McCoy’s particular kind of lyricism is calmer than Coltrane’s often becomes, so that the balance is between kinds of lyricism, not opposites. Coltrane adds: “I’ve known him a long time and I’ve always felt I wanted to play with him. Our ideas meet and blend. Working with McCoy is like putting on a nice-fitting glove.” After Tyner, Coltrane ends the piece by invoking a yearning intensity that is considerably more convincing than much of the factitious gospel-like “soul jazz” that has been pervasive in the last couple of years.

Softly As In A Morning Sunrise was included, Coltrane notes, “because I like to get a sensible variety in an album. It seems to me to round out the two originals, and I especially liked the swinging by Jones in this particular take.” Coltrane is again on soprano. Tyner opens with a brightly relaxed, crystalline solo which leads into an intriguing Coltrane series of thematic variations in which he doesn’t spare himself technically while proving how malleable even the stubborn soprano saxophone can be.

Chasin’ The Trane is a blues. “Usually, I like to get familiar with a new piece before I record it, but you never have to worry about the blues, unless the line is very complicated. In this case, however, the melody not only wasn’t written but it wasn’t even conceived before we played it. We set the tempo, and in we went.” In view of the length of this and a number of Coltrane’s other performances, I asked him if my own theory was valid that he was trying to create and sustain a kind of hypnotic mood so that the listener in time becomes oblivious to distractions and becomes drawn into the music with his usual emotional defense down. “That may be a secondary thing,” he answered, “but I haven’t reached the stage yet where I’m trying consciously to produce effects of that kind. I’m still primarily looking into certain sounds, certain scales. The result can be long or short. I never know. It’s always one thing leading into another. It keeps evolving, and sometimes it’s longer than I actually thought it was while I was playing it. When things are constantly happening, the piece just doesn’t feel that long.”

This extended blues and the two previous numbers led to further Coltrane observations about his musicians. “For a long time,” he said, “Eric Dolphy and I had been talking about all kinds of possibilities with regard to improvising, scale work, and techniques. Those discussions helped both of us to keep probing, and finally I decided that the band was here, after all, and it made sense for Eric to come on in and work. Having him here all the time is a constant stimulus to me. As for Elvin Jones, I especially like his ability to mix and juggle rhythms. He’s also always aware of everything else that’s happening. I guess you could say he has the ability to be in three places at the same time. Reggie Workman has a rich imagination and he has a good sense of going it alone. That’s important in this band. Most times, the other musicians set their own parts. Reggie, for example, is very adept at creating his own bass line. In this band, nobody can lean on anyone else. Each of us has to have a firm sense of where he’s going.”

Coltrane is on tenor in Chasin’ The Trane and plunges in from the top. The solo is particularly fascinating for the astonishing variety of textures Coltrane draws from the full range of his horn and the unflagging intensity of his inventions. Listening to Coltrane in this unyielding performance is so absorbing because it allows the outsider to be present at an uncompromising act of spontaneous creation. Usually, even in jazz, some polishing has been done beforehand to avoid at least some of the dangers of unbridled improvisation; but here the whole piece comes newly and unpredictably alive before us. It is possible, therefore, to experience vicariously that rare contemporary phenomenon – a man going-for-broke. And in public no less. If you can open yourself emotionally to so relentless a self-exploration, you can gain considerable insight into the marrow of the jazz experience and into Coltrane’s own indomitably resourceful musicianship throughout this whirlpool of a blues.

Coltrane continues to work ahead. A couple of months after this date was completed, he was saying, “I’ve got to write more music for the group. I’ve really got to work and study more approaches to writing. I’ve already been looking into those approaches to music – as in India – in which particular sounds and scales are intended to produce specific emotional meanings. I’ve got to keep probing. There’s so much more to do.” And it is precisely this total commitment to the infinite possibilities of music that was so drivingly and sometimes furiously alive in Coltrane’s playing on those two nights at the Village Vanguard.