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
Paracletus cover

Paracletus

Deathspell Omega
Duets cover

Duets

Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell
Unit Structures cover

Unit Structures

Cecil Taylor
Squash Recipe cover

Squash Recipe

Joe Sorbara, Tom Arthurs, Bruce McKinnon
Largo cover

Largo

Brad Mehldau
JuJu cover

JuJu

Wayne Shorter
+/- cover

+/-

Ryoji Ikeda
MoodSwing cover

MoodSwing

Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, Brian Blade
Dark Magus cover

Dark Magus

Miles Davis
Thelonious Monk Trio cover

Thelonious Monk Trio

Thelonious Monk Trio