Blue World (album)

Blue World is an album of 1964 John Coltrane recordings, created as a film soundtrack and released on September 27, 2019.[2] The release has received positive reception from critics.

Blue World
Soundtrack album by
John Coltrane
ReleasedSeptember 27, 2019 (2019-09-27)
RecordedJune 24, 1964[1]
StudioVan Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, U.S.
GenreJazz
Length36:33
LanguageInstrumental
LabelImpulse!
John Coltrane chronology
Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album
(2018)		 Blue World
(2019)

Recording and release

The album was recorded at Van Gelder Studio with the Classic Quartet in between the Crescent and A Love Supreme sessions for the film Le chat dans le sac.[2] Director Gilles Groulx was friends with Jimmy Garrison and he used that relationship to request songs for Coltrane's quartet to record.[1] Groulx traveled to the United States to attend the recording sessions for Coltrane's only soundtrack work[3] and Coltrane recorded it without informing his record label.[4] After three hours in the studio, Groulx took the master tapes with him to Canada.[4] When the director ended up shelving most of the music, it went unreleased until 2019, when Coltrane's long-time label Impulse! Records decided to release it, with the original composition "Blue World" being released on August 16, 2019 along with the announcement of the album.[2] Release was delayed by several years due to the NFB owning the rights to the tape itself but Impulse! having the rights to release it as an album.[5]

The recordings were stored away until the early 21st century, when an archivist from the National Film Board of Canada was tasked with assembling Groulx's work; the government agency negotiated with Impulse! to have the album released.[4] This album comes a year after the successful release of Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, also from Impulse!, capturing a Classic Quartet session from 1963[1] and is part of a trend of unreleased albums from 1950s and 1960s jazz greats released in the 2010s.[6]

Reception

Stereogum's Phil Freeman gave the soundtrack a positive review, calling the piece a coherent recording that almost functions as a suite and writing that the performances are "fascinating and entertaining".[7] For The Arts Fuse, Michael Ullman claims that Coltrane fans will "have to have" the album, particularly for the clarity of the recording during the Classic Quartet period.[8] Victor L. Schermer, writing for All About Jazz, recommended the album with a rating of eight out of 10, summing up, "The one great thing about it is that it keeps the jazz world attuned to all that Coltrane has to offer."[9] Giovanni Russonello of The New York Times gave a positive review to both the performance on the album as well as its production, pointing out how, "Garrison’s bass is turned up rather high, giving the entire session a pulpy, magnetic aura";[10] he additionally called the recordings an "outlier" in Coltrane's catalogue that is "more like a favor to a young filmmaker than an expression of where Coltrane was creatively in that moment".[11]

For The Times, Chris Pearson, gave the album three out of five stars, calling the music "beautifully recorded" but noting that this is a historical artifact for its purpose as a soundtrack.[12] The Guardian named it Jazz Album of the Month, with John Fordham giving it four out of five stars for being "a fascinating hybrid of Coltrane’s song-based earlier methods, and his incandescently devotional late period".[13] Pitchfork named this the best new reissue of September 2019, with Nate Chinen giving it 8.4 out of 10, writing, "There’s no serious argument to be made for its integrity as a proper album; there’s too much redundancy for that, and no way of knowing what Coltrane would have wanted. But the strongest moments on this offhanded, unintended artifact are remarkable even by the standards of this band at this juncture, and the historical record will reflect that."[14]

Track listing

All songs written by John Coltrane

  1. "Naima" (Take 1) – 4:36
  2. "Village Blues" (Take 2) – 3:46
  3. "Blue World" – 6:08
  4. "Village Blues" (Take 1) – 3:48
  5. "Village Blues" (Take 3) – 3:46
  6. "Like Sonny" – 2:43
  7. "Traneing In" – 7:38
  8. "Naima" (Take 2) – 4:08

Personnel

The John Coltrane Quartet

Additional personnel

Charts
Chart (2019) Peak
position
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[15] 30
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[16] 73
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[17] 54
Canadian Albums (Billboard)[18] 64
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[19] 21
Italian Albums (FIMI)[20] 48
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[21] 47
Portuguese Albums (AFP)[22] 13
Scottish Albums (OCC)[23] 27
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)[24] 50
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[25] 45
US Billboard 200[26] 76

References
  1. Chinen, Nate (August 16, 2019). "A Lost Album from John Coltrane, with Thanks to a French-Canadian Director". WUIS. Retrieved August 17, 2019.
  2. Cush, Andy (August 16, 2019). "Previously Unheard John Coltrane Album Blue World to Be Released". Spin. Retrieved August 17, 2019.
  3. Kahn, Gretel (August 24, 2019). "How a Québécois Filmmaker Got John Coltrane to Record the Only Soundtrack of His Career". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  4. Dubé, Jacob (September 5, 2019). "Secret John Coltrane Album Was 'Hidden in Plain Sight' as Soundtrack for 1964 French-Canadian Film". The National Post. Retrieved September 5, 2019.
  5. Van Evra, Jennifer (September 27, 2019). "A French-Canadian director, John Coltrane and an Album Nearly Lost to Time: The Full Story". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved September 27, 2019.
  6. Martin, Rachel (September 10, 2019). "Not All 'Lost' Jazz Albums Are Created Equal". Morning Edition. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
  7. Freeman, Phil (September 20, 2019). "Ugly Beauty: The Month in Jazz – September 2019". Stereogum. Retrieved September 21, 2019.
  8. Ullman, Michael (September 4, 2019). "Jazz CD Review: A "Lost" John Coltrane Recording – Blue World". The Arts Fuse. Retrieved September 21, 2019.
  9. Schermer, Victor L. (September 21, 2019). "John Coltrane: Blue World". All About Jazz. Retrieved September 21, 2019.
  10. Russonello, Giovanni (September 25, 2019). "John Coltrane Took a Detour in 1964. Now It's a New Album". The New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
  11. Russonello, Giovanni (September 30, 2019). "What a Jazz Critic Hears on Coltrane's 'New' Album". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2019.
  12. Pearson, Chris (September 27, 2019). "John Coltrane: Blue World review—richly emotional". The Times. Retrieved September 27, 2019.
  13. Fordham, John (September 27, 2019). "John Coltrane: Blue World Review – Vibrant Sampler of a Musical Giant". The Guardian. Retrieved September 27, 2019.
  14. Chinen, Nate (September 30, 2019). "John Coltrane: Blue World Album Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved September 30, 2019.
  15. "Austriancharts.at – John Coltrane – Blue World" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  16. "Ultratop.be – John Coltrane – Blue World" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved October 4, 2019.
  17. "Ultratop.be – John Coltrane – Blue World" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved October 4, 2019.
  18. "John Coltrane Chart History (Canadian Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved October 8, 2019.
  19. "Offiziellecharts.de – John Coltrane – Blue World" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved October 4, 2019.
  20. "Album – Classifica settimanale WK 40 (dal 27.09.2019 al 03.10.2019)" (in Italian). Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  21. "Oricon Top 50 Albums: 2019-10-07" (in Japanese). Oricon. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
  22. "Portuguesecharts.com – John Coltrane – Blue World". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
  23. "Official Scottish Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  24. "Top 100 Albumes – Semana 40: del 27.9.2019 al 3.10.2019" (in Spanish). Productores de Música de España. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  25. "Swisscharts.com – John Coltrane – Blue World". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  26. "John Coltrane Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved October 8, 2019.
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