Blue Train is a hard bop jazz album by John Coltrane, recorded on September 15, 1957, at the Van Gelder Studio. It is considered Coltrane's first solo album, as it is the first he recorded featuring musicians and songs entirely of his choosing. All of the compositions were written by Coltrane, save "I'm Old Fashioned", a Jerome Kern/Johnny Mercer standard. The title track is a long, rhythmically variegated blues with a brooding minor theme that g...
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Blue Train is a hard bop jazz album by John Coltrane, recorded on September 15, 1957, at the Van Gelder Studio. It is considered Coltrane's first solo album, as it is the first he recorded featuring musicians and songs entirely of his choosing. All of the compositions were written by Coltrane, save "I'm Old Fashioned", a Jerome Kern/Johnny Mercer standard. The title track is a long, rhythmically variegated blues with a brooding minor theme that gradually shifts to major during Coltrane's first chorus. "Locomotion" is also a blues riff tune, in thirty-two-bar form. The album was one of his few recordings for Blue Note Records (catalogue number 81577.)
Coltrane's next major album—1959's Giant Steps—would break new melodic and harmonic ground in jazz, whereas Blue Train adheres to the hard bop style of the era. Two of its songs—"Moment's Notice" and "Lazy Bird"—demonstrate Coltrane's first recorded use of Coltrane changes, which he would later expand upon on Giant Steps.
Blue Train...
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