Even more important than what was being played became who was playing it with whom. The idea of actively using casting questions as a momentum and creative factor, of making them decisive adjusting screws in the production of jazz, in order to tap and release otherwise unattainable energy potentials from the combination of specific musical personalities, was probably first encountered by Coltrane as a member of the Miles Davis Quintet. Not as an alternative, but as a second bass player, mind you: a decidedly unusual line-up with which Coltrane intended to integrate ensemble constellations of certain African recordings into his work. A total of 18 musicians were involved in the sessions of May 23 and Jin the Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, which had been opened two years earlier – and the quartet was actually a quintet in this intermediate phase, since Coltrane had temporarily engaged Art Davis in addition to Reggie Workman. ![]() One reason for this may be that ✺frica/Brass« must be considered an »atypical« Coltrane album in at least one respect: The John Coltrane Quartet, the performer attribution on the original cover, only partially corresponds to the true conditions during the recording sessions. Nevertheless, it should be noted that ✺frica/Brass« in general perception, especially in comparison with albums such as „Giant Steps” (1960), »My Favorite Things« (1961), »Olé« (1961) or ✺ Love Supreme« (1965), which form the temporal environment of its creation, tends to be somewhat overshadowed by these classics recognized as timeless masterpieces. Downbeat-writer Martin Williams gave it two stars out of possible five, complaining about a lack of melodic development as well as »technical order and logic.« Sixty years later, this surprisingly reserved assessment may be regarded as largely revised. When ✺frica/Brass«, the eighth album by US-saxophonist John Coltrane, came out on September 1, 1961, one of the first Impulse!-releases back then, incidentally in direct succession to Gil Evans’ »Out Of The Cool« and Oliver Nelson’s »The Blues and the Abstract Truth«, the reactions of contemporary critics are said to have been predominantly restrained.
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