John Coltrane - 1961 [1987] "My Favorite Things"

My Favorite Things is the seventh studio album by jazz musician John Coltrane, released in 1961 on Atlantic Records, catalogue SD-1361. It was the first album to feature Coltrane playing soprano saxophone. An edited version of the title track became a hit single that gained popularity in 1961 on radio. The record became a major commercial success. In 1998, the album received the Grammy Hall of Fame award. It attained gold record status in 2018, having sold 500,000 copies.

In March 1960, while on tour in Europe, Miles Davis purchased a soprano saxophone for Coltrane. With the exception of Steve Lacy's late 1950s work with the pianist Cecil Taylor, the instrument had become little used in jazz at that time. Intrigued by its capabilities, Coltrane began playing it at his summer club dates.

After leaving the Davis band, Coltrane, for his first regular bookings at New York's Jazz Gallery in the summer of 1960, assembled the first version of the John Coltrane Quartet. The line-up settled by autumn with McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. Sessions the week before Halloween at Atlantic Studios yielded the track "Village Blues" for Coltrane Jazz and the entirety of this album along with the tracks that Atlantic would later assemble into Coltrane Plays the Blues and Coltrane's Sound.

The famous track is a modal rendition of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. The melody is heard numerous times throughout, but instead of playing solos over the written chord changes, both Tyner and Coltrane take extended solos over vamps of the two tonic chords, E minor and E major, played in waltz time. In the documentary The World According to John Coltrane, narrator Ed Wheeler remarks on the impact that this song's popularity had on Coltrane's career:

    In 1960, Coltrane left Miles [Davis] and formed his own quartet to further explore modal playing, freer directions, and a growing Indian influence. They transformed "My Favorite Things", the cheerful populist song from 'The Sound of Music,' into a hypnotic eastern dervish dance. The recording was a hit and became Coltrane's most requested tune—and a bridge to broad public acceptance.

Although seemingly impossible to comprehend, this landmark jazz date made in 1960 was recorded in less than three days. All the more remarkable is that the same sessions which yielded My Favorite Things would also inform a majority of the albums Coltrane Plays the Blues, Coltrane's Sound, and Coltrane Legacy. It is easy to understand the appeal that these sides continue to hold. The unforced, practically casual soloing styles of the assembled quartet -- which includes Coltrane (soprano/tenor sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Steve Davis (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums) -- allow for tastefully executed passages à la the Miles Davis Quintet, a trait Coltrane no doubt honed during his tenure in that band. Each track of this album is a joy to revisit. The ultimate listenability may reside in this quartet's capacity to not be overwhelmed by the soloist. Likewise, they are able to push the grooves along surreptitiously and unfettered. For instance, the support that the trio -- most notably Tyner -- gives to Coltrane on the title track winds the melody in and around itself. However, instead of becoming entangled and directionless, these musical sidebars simultaneously define the direction the song is taking. As a soloist, the definitive soprano sax runs during the Cole Porter standard "Everytime We Say Goodbye" and tenor solos on "But Not for Me" easily establish Coltrane as a pioneer of both instruments.

An essential modal jazz album and an important precursor to post bop. My Favorite Things is wonderfully hypnotic collection of modal and post-modal reinterpretations of standards, best epitomized by the 13 minute title track, which of course gets all the attention. On the title track, Coltrane expertly turns the sound of music chestnut into a swirling, sprawling dervish of modal jazz track where he and McCoy Tyner manage to keep up an expertly melodic and mellow performance even as Steve Davis and Elvin Jones drum up a storm (pun intended) that swirls around the two with rhythm section work that undoutedly informed much of what we would hear in post-bop tracks from later in the decade. Coltrane shows off his pretty ballad side on the weepy, melancholic ballad that is Cole Porter's Every Time We Say Goodbye. Much like with Naima on Giant Steps, this proves to be the only serene oasis in what is a pretty upbeat, rhythmically driving album. Side two, while more in the hard bop style than the first side, is just as if not more energetic than the first side and is frankly just as good, even though it unfortunately gets overlooked by the magnificent side one. Coltrane transforms the often times eerie and sensual Gershwin classic Summertime into a joyous, driving anthem featuring some of Tyner's best piano playing on the album not on the title track and as an added bonus, a fantastic drum solo from Jones. George and Ira Gershwin's usually solemn and melancholic But Not For Me also get's an upbeat treatment to round out the album, complete with some wonderfully playful, dancing piano work from Tyner.

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 Track listing:

1. My Favorite Things     13:41
2. Everytime We Say Goodbye     5:39
3. Summertime     11:31
4. But Not For Me     9:35

Personnel:

    John Coltrane – soprano saxophone on side one and bonus tracks; tenor saxophone on side two
    McCoy Tyner – piano
    Steve Davis – double bass
    Elvin Jones – drums