Transformatively remastered, first performances of Coltrane’s classic quartet, including the sensational debut of Chasin’ The Trane.
The two Impulse LPs Live at the Village Vanguard and Impressions, plus a second performance of Spiritual retrieved from a box-set.
‘The big deal is that the label’s Revisited series employs a combination of state-of-the-art mastering technology and outstanding engineers to deliver substantially improved audio. If you are using an even halfway decent hi-fi set up, you will notice the difference in clarity and presence, with Coltrane’s saxophone and Elvin Jones’ drums particular benificiaries. This makes Chasin’ The Trane Revisited practically a down by law must-have for Coltrane aficionados’ (Chris May).

Two dates from an extended stay at the Half Note club, March 26 — May 7, 1965; originally captured for radio broadcast, but issued by Impulse! in 2005 as One Down, One Up: Live At The Half Note.
Here it is again, with vastly improved sound, re-sequenced to culminate in the stunning saxophone-drums duet One Down, One Up.

Writing in All About Jazz, Chris May quotes Alice Coltrane, reminiscing about this period: ‘Someone in the audience would stand up, their arms upreaching, and they would be like that for an hour or more. Their clothing would be soaked with perspiration, and when they finally sat down, they practically fell down. The music just took people out of the whole material world; it lifted them up.’ And Archie Shepp, specifically about these Half Note gigs: ‘It was like being in a church. I mean, Coltrane brought something which raised this music from secular music to a religious world music.’

Three LPs, boldly mapping their own way through Fire Music, with elements of modern classical music and an abstraction of Mingus as their guiding stars: The Archie Shepp-Bill Dixon Quartet, originally released in 1962 on Savoy; the split Bill Dixon 7-Tette / Archie Shepp And The New York Contemporary 5 from 1964, another Savoy, with some ace Ken McIntyre; and the sombre masterpiece Intents And Purposes, by The Bill Dixon Orchestra — devised to accompany contemporary dance, and with some scorching Byard Lancaster — originally released in 1967 by RCA Victor.

‘How Time Passes and Essence were issued at a time when jazz history was being made practically on a monthly basis. There are a few reasons why they became submerged in the tsunami of groundbreaking albums released in the first years of the 1960s. For starters, Candid and Pacific Jazz simply did not have the market clout of Atlantic, Impulse, and other labels. Furthermore, Don Ellis’ music differed significantly from that of the avatars of free jazz, occupying a space between contemporary jazz and mid-century chamber music. However, the times eventually caught up. More than sixty years after their initial release, these recordings were as prescient as they are brilliant.’

With Jaki Byard, Ron Carter and Charlie Persip, in the earlier group; then Paul Bley, Gary Peacock and Gene Stone / Nick Martinis.

His two Riverside masterpieces Sunday At The Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby.
The music sounds better than ever after Ezzthetics’ restoration-work, which removes the accustomed breaks between tracks, so that the concerts unfold continuously and vividly, laced with crowd chatter and clinking glass, and all. You feel like you’re there in the Village Vanguard, in 1961, enraptured. Evans is exquisitely soulful throughout, and the improvisatory trio interplay is famously stunning: check My Man’s Gone Now, featuring Scott LaFaro.
It’s a scorcher. Unmissable.

‘A soundtrack for being unstuck in time, if just for an hour. It is a glide through a rich past and present, with glimpses of a future worth reaching.’

Dazzling abscondments from bebop, as fresh and challenging now as then.
Microtonal and pointillistic; formally forensic and equal handed; freely and limpidly expressive. Strictly no going through the motions; no cliches; no posturing, or emotional bluster.
‘What comes out is an investigation of sound from the inside out, textually, tonally, spatially’ (as Pitchfork describes a much later session).
Clarinet solos, and duos and trios with Steve Swallow and Paul Bley. 
Amazing stuff.

Scintillating recordings by Giuffre, Swallow and Bley, in the early winter of their annus mirabilis; mostly drawn from studio work earlier in the year, but exhilaratingly transformed, freshly spontaneous.
Hotly recommended.