Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy cover

Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy

Recorded
Released

From August 8 to September 3, 1961, John Coltrane had a residency going at the Village Gate, a club in lower Manhattan. It’s not known which nights these tapes were made, but the band includes Eric Dolphy on alto sax, bass clarinet, and flute; McCoy Tyner on piano; Reggie Workman on bass; and Elvin Jones on drums, plus second bassist Art Davis on an epic version of “Africa,” the only known live recording of the opening track from 1962’s Africa/Brass. The music was recorded with a single microphone hanging from the club’s ceiling, running to a tape deck backstage, so you get a kind of ambient, holistic sound that tends to prioritize the horns and the drums. Tyner’s piano is very quiet in the mix, and Workman’s audible but often more of a low bounce than the force he could be. On “Africa,” though, he and Davis get some dual spotlight time that’s extraordinarily beautiful, and the way Coltrane and Dolphy play as a duo, each man spurring the other on, is phenomenal.

Phil Freeman

Suggestions
The Sky Below cover

The Sky Below

Miles Okazaki
Lux cover

Lux

Aluk Todolo
Lord of Lords cover

Lord of Lords

Alice Coltrane
Translinear Light cover

Translinear Light

Alice Coltrane
Levels and Degrees of Light cover

Levels and Degrees of Light

Muhal Richard Abrams
Thembi cover

Thembi

Pharoah Sanders
Radiotree cover

Radiotree

Klaus Paier, radio.string.quartet.vienna
Montreux Jazz Festival cover

Montreux Jazz Festival

Ronald Shannon Jackson & the Decoding Society