Blue Train is a studio album by the jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane. It was released through Blue Note Records in January 1958.[1] It is Coltrane's only session as leader for Blue Note.[8] The recording took place at Rudy Van Gelder's studio on September 15, 1957.
Coltrane wrote four of the record's five tracks. His playing exhibits early elements of the signature style for which he later became known. Blue Train attained a gold sales certification by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2001.
Background
The album was recorded in the midst of Coltrane's residency at the Five Spot as a member of the Thelonious Monk quartet. The personnel include Coltrane's Miles Davis bandmates, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, both of whom had worked before with pianist Kenny Drew. Both trumpeter Lee Morgan and trombonist Curtis Fuller were up-and-coming jazz musicians, and both were members of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in due course. Unlike his previous label, Blue Note paid the musicians to rehearse the music for a couple of days before the recording session.[9]
Composition
All of the compositions were written by Coltrane, with the exception of the standard "I'm Old Fashioned". Though at this point his compositions used conventional diatonic harmonies, they were set in unconventional ways.[10] The title track is a bluesy song with a quasi-minor (Eb7#9) theme. "Locomotion" is also a blues riff tune, in forty-four-bar form.[11] "Lazy Bird" is in part a transposition into the key of "G" of the Tadd Dameron composition "Lady Bird".[12]
Style
Coltrane's playing exhibits the move toward what would become his signature style. His solos are more harmonic or "vertical" and lines arpeggiated. His timing was often apart from or over the beat, rather than playing on or behind it.[9] During a 1960 interview, Coltrane described Blue Train as his favorite album of his own up to that point.[13]
John Coltrane's next major album, Giant Steps, recorded in 1959, would break new melodic and harmonic ground in jazz, whereas Blue Train adheres to the hard bop style of the era. Musicologist Lewis Porter has also demonstrated a harmonic relationship between Coltrane's "Lazy Bird" and Tadd Dameron's "Lady Bird".[14][15]
While on Joe Vella's podcast "Traneumentary", Michael Cuscuna, the reissue producer at Blue Note, commented:
We’re listening to Blue Train, which to me is one of the most beautiful pieces on one of the most beautiful records that Coltrane recorded in the fifties. It’s his first real mature statement and he wrote all but one of the tunes on this album which was very rare in the fifties and each one is a gem, particularly the title tune Blue Train. And while it’s kind of easy to play the blues, this has a suspended and haunting kind of quality to it.[16]
Reissues and certification
It had sold more than half a million copies by April 2001 and was thus certified with a gold sales certification by the RIAA the following year.[7][17]
In 2015, Blue Note/Universal released a Blu-ray audio edition of the album with four bonus tracks, one of which is a previously unreleased take of "Lazy Bird". Alternate takes of "Moment's Notice" were released on Blue Train: The Complete Masters, in 2022.
In 2000 it was voted number 339 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.[23] He stated "Coltrane may have made more important albums, but none swung as effectively as this one.
Track listing
All tracks written by John Coltrane except where noted.
