John Coltrane - Meditations [Verve Vault Series]

On November 23, 1965, John Coltrane brought his classic quartet to Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, added a second tenor player and a second drummer, and recorded music that his own band could not survive. Bob Thiele produced. By early the following year Elvin Jones had quit, and McCoy Tyner had gone with him. Meditations, released in 1966, is the last recording by that group, and it plays like a document of a door closing.

The five-part suite opens with "The Father And The Son And The Holy Ghost" in something close to pure turbulence: Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders overblowing together, Rashied Ali and Jones locked in parallel behind them, Tyner and Jimmy Garrison holding what ground they can. Then it turns. "Compassion," "Love" and "Serenity" work their way back toward the devotional register of A Love Supreme, though the calm here is hard won and never entirely settled. It is a demanding listen and it has never pretended otherwise, but the reward is hearing Coltrane state exactly what he believed music was for.

Jones later said he could not hear himself with two drummers in the room. That tension is the record. Everything Coltrane did in his last two years starts here.

The Verve Vault Series reissue presents it on 180-gram vinyl in a gatefold sleeve, remastered by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound and pressed at Optimal. On Impulse!