John Coltrane - The Bethlehem Years (2000) {Bethlehem Archives/Avenue Jazz/Rhino} **[RE-UP]**

Posted By: TestTickles
Date: June 22, 2019

John Coltrane - The Bethlehem Years (2000) {Bethlehem Archives/Avenue Jazz/Rhino}
EAC Rip | FLAC with CUE and log | scans | 902 mb
MP3 CBR 320kbps | RAR | 311 mb
Genre: jazz

The Bethlehem Years is a 2CD compilation by John Coltrane. Originally released in 1994, this edition was made by Bethlehem Archives/Avenue Jazz/Rhino Records in 2000, consisting of recording sessions from December 1957 when Coltrane was doing sessions for others. (NOTE: While it features some of the same set of songs, this is different from the 1976 compilation album Turning Point - The Bethlehem Years.)
This double-disc collection contains three sessions saxophonist John Coltrane recorded for Bethlehem as a sideman at the end 1957. Disc one contains the original album Winners Circle, an all-star date that included, among others, Donald Byrd, Freddie Green, Oscar Pettiford, Gene Quill, Philly Joe Jones, Frank Rehak, Al Cohn, and Eddie Costa. Second, Art Blakey Big Band was recorded concurrently and included Melba Liston, Sahib Shihab, Walter Bishop, Jr., Bill Hardman, Jimmy Cleveland, Byrd, and others. Coltrane has one composition on the Winners Circle date, "Pristine," a taut blues that would not have been out of place on his Blue Train set. But the real revelatory stuff is the second disc that includes one unreleased cut, "Oasis," and alternate takes of seven titles from the sessions (there are three alone of "Pristine.") As this collection shows, Coltrane was developing himself as a soloist and, while he was imaginative and aggressive, he was not quite the consistently creative force he was to become in '58 and '59. The music here is of high quality – especially the Blakey Big Band material – because it was a stretch for the bandleader from his Jazz Messengers sessions.


DISC 1
01. Midriff (SESSION B)
02. Ain't Life Grand (SESSION B)
03. Tippin' (SESSION C)
04. Pristine (SESSION C)
05. El Toro Valiente (SESSION B)
06. The Kiss Of No Return (SESSION B)
07. Late Date (SESSION B)
08. The Outer World (SESSION B)
09. Not So Sleepy (SESSION A)
10. Love And The Weather (SESSION A)
11. If I'm Lucky (SESSION A)
12. Turtle Walk (SESSION A1)


DISC 2
01. Oasis (SESSION B)
02. Midriff (Take 1) (SESSION B)
03. Midriff (Take 2) (SESSION B)
04. The Kiss Of No Return (SESSION B)
05. The Kiss Of No Return (SESSION B)
06. The Outer World (Take 2) (SESSION B)
07. The Outer World (Take 5) (SESSION B)
08. El Toro Valiente (Take 1) (SESSION B)
09. Ain't Life Grand (Take 2) (SESSION B)
10. Ain't Life Grand (Take 5) (SESSION B)
11. Pristine (Take 2) (SESSION C)
12. Pristine (Take 6) (SESSION C)
13. Pristine (Take 8) (SESSION C)
14. Tippin' (Take 1) (SESSION C)
15. Tippin' (Take 3) (SESSION C)

–-
PERSONNEL:
SESSION A:
Donald Byrd
Frank Rehak
John Coltrane
Al Cohn
Eddie Costa
Freddie Green
Oscar Pettiford
Gene Quill
Philly Joe Jones
Recorded in New York City, October, November, December, 1957

A1:
Gene Quill is not on this track
All tracks recorded for session A were originally recorded for Winner's Circle, BCP 6066


SESSION B:
Donald Byrd
Idrees Sulieman
Bill Hardman
Ray Copeland
Melba Liston
Frank Rehak
Jimmy Cleveland
Sahib Shihab
Bill Graham
John Coltrane
Al Cohn
Bill Slapin
Walter Bishop, Jr.
Wendell Marshall
Art Blakey

SESSION C:
Donald Byrd
John Coltrane
Walter Bishop, Jr.
Wendell Marshall
Art Blakey
Both B & C sessions were originally recorded in New York City, December 1957 for Art Blakey Big Band, BCP 6027

###
Compiled and remastered by Tom Moulton at Frankford Wayne Mastering Labs, NY
Engineer: Rick Essig
Additional engineering: Greg Vaughn
–-
Taken from a recording session he attended a few short months after the release of his star-making Blue Train album in late 1957, The Bethlehem Years features John Coltrane in a context that adds nothing to his recorded legacy. The album makes sense for Coltrane fanatics who want to fill a hole in their history records, but as far as the casual jazz fan is concerned, it should be approached as little more than a marketing trick.

That's not to say there isn't any good music to be found here. The first disc of the two-disc set is an all-star recording featuring esteemed players like Philly Joe Jones, Donald Byrd and Freddie Green. The problem is that the album feels as much theirs as it does Coltrane's. It could easily be argued that Donald Byrd's playing on the album is just as vital as the more famous horn man's, but Donald Byrd reissues aren't going to empty many wallets, so we have a new Coltrane album. The playing is of a uniformly high quality, but no one astounds; and apart from one or two tracks ("Late Date" has a coolly bouncing theme and there's a nice run-through of Irving Berlin's "Love and the Weather"), the tunes rarely rise above pleasant. Coltrane pulls of a nice solo here or there, and some of them – like the one on "Midriff" – have traces of the lines he would later follow, but his work in Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk's bands from the same era feature much more exploratory, innovative, and passionate playing.

The liner notes tell us that the recording comes from two sessions: an all-star conglomeration of critic's poll winners (previously released as Winner's Circle) and a previously unreleased Art Blakey date where Coltrane sat in with the Jazz Messengers. A more polite Jazz Messengers is a good reference point for the music here – although Blakey's bands of the time never did anything quite as syrupy as "The Kiss of No Return" (of which we're given three takes). Regardless, it's still kind of a kick to hear Coltrane play with Blakey - a very different drummer than the ones he normally played with – but the musical results add nothing to our understanding of either musician. They were gathered at the behest of Bethlehem Records in order to market a gimmick.

Coltrane's lasting appeal stems from his musical and spiritual intensity – the sublime fervor and restless intensity he brought to works like "Alabama" from Live at Birdland or A Love Supreme. His resonance has little, if anything to do with unassuming hard bop; others did it better and more interestingly. It's nice to hear Coltrane playing this kind of music, but only in the same way that it would be nice to hear Kurt Cobain playing in a Cheap Trick cover band. Which is to say that it's lovely to be able to fill in a part of the picture we hadn't seen before, but the music is not significant in itself. To be fair, The Bethlehem Years makes better cocktail party music than most cash-in jobs, and the packaging and liner notes show a fair amount of care, but that's a faint praise for an album credited to John Coltrane.

In the two years after recording the music presented here, Coltrane would cut Giant Steps and My Favorite Things, two works of wide-ranging individual and genre-changing implications. Those albums are complete works of astounding creativity and musical mastery; The Bethlehem Years is nothing more than a curio designed to fill a discographical hole and as such can be recommended to completists only.

EAC extraction logfile from 13. September 2007, 14:06 for CD
John Coltrane / The Bethlehem Years (Disc 1)

Used drive : LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1633S Adapter: 0 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache
Read offset correction : 12
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Installed external ASPI interface


Track 1
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Track 2
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Track 9
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No errors occured


End of status report





EAC extraction logfile from 13. September 2007, 17:10 for CD
John Coltrane / The Bethlehem Years (Disc 2)

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Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache
Read offset correction : 12
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo

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Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Installed external ASPI interface


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Filename D:\FLAC\John Coltrane - The Bethlehem Years (2CD) (2000) [FLAC] {Bethlehem Archives, Avenue Jazz, Rhino}\Disc 2\01 - Oasis.wav

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Track 2
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No errors occured


End of status report