< John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy's fearless experiment sets a new album ablaze

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

We now think of saxophonist John Coltrane as an icon of American music, as if every recording he left us were a sacred relic. That was not the case in 1961 when a critic famously disparaged Coltrane and his band as, quote, "anti-jazz." But now there's a newly discovered recording from that time. And it sounds pretty spectacular, according to Nate Chinen of member station WRTI who has an exclusive first listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "MY FAVORITE THINGS")

NATE CHINEN, BYLINE: This is what a jazz listener might have expected to hear from John Coltrane live in 1961.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "MY FAVORITE THINGS")

CHINEN: It's his version of "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound Of Music," which became a breakout hit when he released it that spring. But there was a considerable difference between the music Coltrane was releasing to the public in 1961 and what he was trying out on the bandstand.

REGGIE WORKMAN: He had already played through all the changes and all the tunes, and he was growing into a place where he did not want to be inhibited by the steps and the changes that were prescribed by certain structures.

CHINEN: Reggie Workman is one of several bass players that Coltrane worked with during this period. He says that Coltrane urged his rhythm sections to reach past harmonic complexity toward something more like incantation.

WORKMAN: He wanted us to be about a chant. He wanted us to be about whatever chant he set up.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "IMPRESSIONS")

CHINEN: Workman was a part of the band that Coltrane brought to a New York City club called the Village Gate for a monthlong residency in late summer of 1961. The Gate was a large basement room with a growing reputation - a home to folk singers and comedy acts as well as musical artists like Nina Simone. The club had a state-of-the-art sound system installed by an ambitious young engineer named Rich Alderson. One night during Coltrane's run, he tested out a new microphone by recording the band.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "IMPRESSIONS (FEAT. ERIC DOLPHY) [LIVE]")

CHINEN: The tapes were unauthorized, and Alderson put them aside. An archivist recently rediscovered them at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. And on July 14, the music will see release as an album - "Evenings At The Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy."

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "IMPRESSIONS (FEAT. ERIC DOLPHY) [LIVE]")

CHINEN: There's a reason for the shared billing in that album title. Eric Dolphy was a saxophonist, bass clarinetist and flutist who had added a jolt to Coltrane's group in 1961.

BEN RATLIFF: I think they represented slightly different dispositions.

CHINEN: Music critic Ben Ratliff is the author of "Coltrane: The Story Of A Sound." He says the collaboration between Coltrane and Dolphy reflects both a creative kinship and a study in contrasts.

RATLIFF: With Coltrane, there's this sense of, like, just a massive pushing out of air and also a very heavy and almost tangible kind of presiding conscience. That's why so many people love him. But I think Dolphy's different just because he moves faster, and there's more kind of popping around. And, you know, I mean, he was interested in the song of birds.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "IMPRESSIONS (FEAT. ERIC DOLPHY) [LIVE]")

CHINEN: Coltrane didn't work much with Dolphy after 1961 in part because their pairing had faced such incomprehension from the jazz establishment. But a couple of months after playing the Village Gate, Coltrane brought his band into another leading club and recorded an album that saw commercial release at the time. That album, "Coltrane: Live At The Village Vanguard," is considered a landmark of its era in jazz. Now we'll have a companion piece recorded in the same period in the same neighborhood - another glimpse of what Coltrane was reaching towards. An ecstatic sense of risk supercharges this music, and more than 60 years later, it sounds just as alive.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "IMPRESSIONS (FEAT. ERIC DOLPHY) [LIVE]")

KELLY: That was Nate Chinen of member station WRTI. The upcoming release is called "Evenings At The Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy."

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "IMPRESSIONS (FEAT. ERIC DOLPHY) [LIVE]")

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