John Coltrane - Impressions (Verve Acoustic Sounds Series)

Two settings, one restless quartet: Impressions catches John Coltrane stretching out live and tightening up in the studio, reissued here in the Verve Acoustic Sounds Series on 180-gram vinyl.

Released on Impulse! in 1963 with Bob Thiele producing, the album pairs two lengthy performances from Coltrane's 1961 Village Vanguard residency, the same run of nights behind his celebrated live record from that club, with two compact studio pieces cut at Rudy Van Gelder's studio. The contrast is the point, showing a band pushing modal jazz to its limits while still capable of real restraint.

India opens with a hypnotic drone, Jimmy Garrison and Reggie Workman doubling up on bass beneath Eric Dolphy's woody bass clarinet as Coltrane reaches toward Indian classical music. The title track is a fifteen-minute tenor workout over Elvin Jones's churning polyrhythms and McCoy Tyner's open, ringing chords. After the Rain, with Roy Haynes on drums, offers a breather, a hushed ballad of real tenderness, while Up 'Gainst the Wall keeps things brief and punchy.

The Byrds wore out a tape of this music on tour in 1965, and you can hear its drones echo through the psychedelic rock that followed. More than sixty years later, it still sounds like a door being kicked open.