Side Steps

There are ten LP albums represented in Side Steps, some in their entirety. The LP titles are Elmo Hope Sextet: Informal Jazz; Sonny Rollins: Tenor Madness; Tadd Dameron: Mating Call’ Mal Waldron: Mal/2 and The Dealers, the Red Garland Quintet: All Mornin' Long, Soul Junction, High Pressure and Dig It!; Gene Ammons' All Stars: The Big Sound and Groove Blues; and the Ray Draper Quintet: New Jazz. Other than Tenor Madness, these are not very high-profile jazz albums and perhaps, because of that, they are rarely heard. This makes this remastered set an excellent selection for the Coltrane collector or anyone interested in late '50s hard-bop. It's nice to hear something new, even if it is 50 years old.

In Side Steps the 43 tracks are presented in the order they were recorded, rather than as they were released on LP albums. The most famous track in this set documents a historic moment with Coltrane trading solos with Sonny Rollins on the 12-minute title track of Rollins' Tenor Madness. These two tenor titans only recorded together this one time and only a single track, despite the fact that they greatly admired each other’s work.

A particular favorite track of mine is Mal Waldron's poignant arrangement of "Don't Explain" on disc 2 from Waldron's LP, Mal/2. It begins slowly with the bass playing pedal point on 2 and 4 with light drums and Donald Byrd's trumpet soulfully playing the melody, punctuated by dissonant piercing tones from the saxophones. On the bridge, Coltrane's tenor blends beautifully with Jackie McLean's alto in harmony. Byrd lays down a bluesy solo and Coltrane follows, managing to squeeze a dazzling amount of music into a few bars without altering the mood. The head arrangement is repeated and the tune ends as it began with bass on 2 and 4 and light drums.

Another interesting combination is Coltrane playing with Ray Draper on tuba. The contrast between the sounds of the instruments is striking, particularly when they play in unison, and the tuba provides a rich depth of sound for the tenor to solo over.

This also is the time when Coltrane started developing his so-called "sheets of sound" and Side Steps contains many marvelous examples of these extremely dense improvisational lines, consisting of high speed arpeggios and scales played in rapid succession over the changes. A good example is his blistering solo on Charlie Parker's "Billies Bounce" on disc 4 from the Red Garland Quintet's Dig It! album.

To document this collection. Side Steps comes with a booklet that contains photos from the recording sessions and reproductions of all of the original album cover art as well as all of the original LP liner notes by Ira Gitler, Nat Hentoff, Joe Goldberg, and Michael Gold. The booklet also includes detailed session logs and extensive commentary by Ashley Kahn, including an interview with Prestige Records founder Bob Weinstock.

There are other notable sidemen appearing on this collection alongside John Coltrane, including Pepper Adams on baritone sax; Donald Byrd and Idrees Sulieman on trumpets; Paul Chambers on bass; Philly Joe Jones, Art Taylor and Ed Thigpen on drums; Jackie McLean on alto; Hank Mobley and Paul Quinichette on tenor sax; Jerome Richardson on flute; and Sahib Shihab on alto & baritone.

Over the past three years, Prestige Records has released two other boxed sets of Coltrane's numerous sessions from the mid- to late '50s, each spotlighting a specific dimension of his tenure with the label. Fearless Leader - released in September 2006 in celebration of Coltrane's 80th birthday - showcases his recordings as a bandleader [click here for a Jazz Police review]. Interplay, released in September 2007, contains Coltrane's early collaborative recordings with a variety of stellar musicians from the same era. Side Steps is the third and final set in that series.

Purchase Side Steps

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