Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album
This long-buried studio session, found among John Coltrane’s holdings by the family of his first wife, Naima, offers a bounty of unheard material by the saxophonist’s classic quartet at a creative peak in 1963. His quartet with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones was cranking out records for Impulse! at the time, some with an attempted commercial bent (this session was recorded just one day before the vocal classic *John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman*). Though *Both Directions at Once* somehow didn’t make the grade, it provides a new glimpse of the group at its most explosive and forward-thinking. “All these musicians are reaching some of the heights of their musical powers,” Coltrane\'s son, Ravi, who helped prepare the album, told the *New York Times*. “On this record, you do get a sense of John with one foot in the past and one foot headed toward his future.”
The newly discovered, unreleased album from 1963 featuring the “classic quartet” finds the jazz giant thrillingly caught between shoring up and surging forth.
“This is like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid.” We tackle a magisterial unheard set from a giant of his field
Read our review of 'Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album,' a newly unearthed John Coltrane session featuring his greatest band.
Years of canonization have obscured how John Coltrane was at a bit of crossroads in the early '60s, playing increasingly adventurous music on-stage while acquiescing to Impulse!'s desire to record marketable albums.
A previously lost 1963 session eavesdrops on a day in the life of the spiritually and musically searching sax genius