In March of 1958 producer and Prestige Records owner Bob Weinstock organized a session with two up-and-comers in a very fertile scene. Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane was the result, pairing one of the most consistent guitarists in Modern Jazz with the now long renowned tenor saxophonist. It took over five years for those recordings to hit the retail racks via the Prestige subsidiary New Jazz, but the contents have been reissued numerous times since, reinforcing the high level of play. The latest edition is set to arrive June 7 on 180 gram vinyl in a tip-on jacket mastered form the original tapes as part of Craft Recordings’ ongoing Original Jazz Classics series.
Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane is certainly a notable album. While Coltrane had played with guitarists before, this set is the only studio album to feature him leading (in this instance, co-leading) a band with that instrument (Wes Montgomery did join Coltrane’s sextet featuring Eric Dolphy for some West Coat live dates in 1961, even playing the Monterey Jazz Festival, but any tapes of those performances have yet to surface).
That this album sat in the vaults for half a decade will understandably lead some to assume it’s a lesser recording, but Weinstock had amassed quite a bit of Coltrane studio material while he had him under contract, sessions methodically issued as the saxophonist’s star continued to rise, often with Coltrane posthumously designated as leader.
To expand a bit, Coltrane and Burrell do play together in a sextet for three tracks on The Cats, a 1957 recording released in ’59. Issued as a leaderless date (sometimes credited to the Prestige All Stars), it sure sounds like it was conceived as a Tommy Flanagan session; the other two tracks feature the pianist in trio with bassist Doug Watkins and drummer Louis Hayes (trumpeter Idrees Sulieman completes the sextet).
The Cats is a clear direct link to the quintet convened 11 months later for Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane, as Flanagan returns on piano, Paul Chambers plays bass and Jimmy Cobb handles the drums. Curiously, and with one crucial exception, this album feels more like a leaderless date than The Cats, a circumstance that’s linked to Flanagan’s high level of play.
Additionally, the opening tune “Freight Trane” and the 14-minute standout closer “Big Paul” are Flanagan compositions. If Coltrane, Chambers, and Cobb having worked as bandmates in Miles Davis’ quintet surely added to the studio rapport, so it was with Flanagan and Burrell, both Detroit guys. Flanagan lends support to Burrell’s first five albums; Chambers, also a Detroiter, plays on the 1956 Blue Note LP Introducing Kenny Burrell.
In the original notes for Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane, Robert Levin states that the LP was initially organized as Burrell’s date. The 1968 reissue does credit the album to the Kenny Burrell Quintet with John Coltrane. It’s in the realm of possibility that the original’s co-leader billing was meant to capitalize on Coltrane’s high profile and the subsequent ’68 issue instead focused on Burrell due to his enduring success throughout the decade. Burrell does bring his tune “Lyresto” to this session, the date rounded out with two standards, “I Never Knew,” and the exception mentioned above.
“Why Was I Born?” is a Burrell and Coltrane duet, an exquisite elevated beauty move on a tune by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein that delivers the album its other highpoint and stands as a sharp but effective contrast with “Big Paul.” The duet pinpoints the participants as sincere appreciators of the Songbook, a passion further affirmed when the whole band joins in for the more up-tempo “I Never Knew.”
But “Why Was I Born?” really does stand out as it shows the tenderness Coltrane was capable of communicating; had Prestige released the session in 1958, it would’ve went a long way in undercutting the perceptions of Coltrane as a merely a high stamina soloing steamroller. But with the title “Freight Trane,” one might assume the accusations of steamrolling would’ve came anyway.
The tenor soloing in “Freight Trane” is energetic, yes, but it’s impressive how Coltrane adjusts his approach to complement and interact with Burrell and also navigate Flanagan’s boppish head. The upbeat “Lyresto” has a similar feel, solidifying the hard-bop foundation. “Big Paul” is a superb stretch-out swinger that never succumbs to cliché and works perfectly as the album’s capper.
Today, Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane is frequently assessed as “just” “another” solid hard-bop session from Coltrane’s early years, but it postdates Blue Train (which was already in the store racks) and the initial sessions for Giant Steps were only a little over a year away (and Coltrane brought Flanagan with him for that one). A few individuals, like Harvey Pekar impressively at the time of album’s release, bestowed the masterpiece tag on its contents. While the playing is impeccable, the LP falls a bit short of that level in terms of impact in 2024. Today, it’s just a sheer pleasure to listen to, and that’s enough.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
