There is, in truth, too much hyperbole among jazz writers, and it reaches an almost unbearable crescendo when it comes to JC. (For starters, compare the notes to classical recordings on this site with the jazz writer's.)

That said, this four disc set contains some of the best jazz ever recorded (not just "live" jazz, any jazz) and a few of the pieces are some of the most interesting music I've ever heard.(For comparison, think of Arnold Schoenberg's string quartets unbound, given free reign.)

It catches Coltrane at the mid-point of his solo career--well afer the smooth "Blue Trane" and well before the "free jazz" of Acension--and, falling just behind ALS, he's at his best.

A few of these pieces are ragged and unfocussed, but the majority are beautifully done and wildly enjoyable. (One caveat: I've never understood the attraction of listeners to "Greensleeves" which, unlike "My Favorite Things", should never have seen the light of day and here sounds like elevator music--both takes.)

I can't think of one reason not to buy this collection. It's brilliant, wonderful, exuberant, and 45 years after being recorded it has stood the test of time. Its faults are minor compared to its overall achievment. Highly recommended.

I bought this several years ago and it has sat in my collection mostly unlistened to (picked it up after reading raves at the time). I had some spare time recently, put the headphones on and the experience amounts to having discovered buried treasure. While I am anything but well-versed in the Coltrane oeuvre, I know excellence when I hear it. I was completely mesmerized and immersed in the experience of these recordings. Totally amazed.

I would place this collection of recordings alongside My Favorite Things, Giant Steps, Ascension and A Love Supreme as defining the icon status accorded John Coltrane. As thrilling as some of his serpentine vertical solos are on both tenor and soprano, the context and daring framework he provides is reciprocated by great performances from his own quartet, plus some of Eric Dolphy's best work. (The dialogue of horns is remarkable, matched only by Trane's brief encounter with Sonny Rollins on "Tenor Madness" some years previous.) The octet/nonet pieces presaged the brilliance later found on Ascension, a landmark of modern jazz where Trane also worked with double rhythm sections as he does on some of the tracks here. The feeling of utter spirituality achieved in the pristine solos of A Love Supreme are also reached often in this setting, and as other reviewers have stated, there is a transcendent quality to this music, one that extends beyond the core of the spiritual black experience that had been engendered in much of the best jazz from Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives right up to that time (and expereinec realyed with rage and a sad poignancy), only to come full circle through the now- burgeoning influence of Eastern scales, drones, and a shimmering aura of peaceful transition. Coltrane's music is indeed in transition here, and could be said to contain both the furious "chickens come home to roost" voice of a Malcolm X before his trip to Mecca, as well as the voice that came home, offering a brand of new peace into the still violent and too-dinterested world the pilgrim left behind. All of that is here; great jazz, great world music, great sprituality, plus recorded sound of distinctive excellence. The stereo balances and individual isolations of instruments are marvelous. This is especially striking in the clarity of McCoy Tyner's and the various bass and drum accompanients (and one may be right to consider Jones' drums actually a sort of leadlead instrument throughout). I would agree with one reviewer the McCoy Tyner's piano does not always sound beautiful (in fact, in his harsh chords the distortion I think comes from Tyner himself in the pounded vehemence of his block chords, and not from any mike overload) but it does sound REAL. Indeed,the recording has astonishing clarity, and I suggest you play it loud, as if you were in the first or second row of tables. Just let this sound wash over you. For newcomers, I would still point them to My Favorite Things or Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, followed perhaps by A Love Supreme. But for me the core of Coltrane's art, soul, and genius are in Ascension and in this large set of truly remarkable live recordings. The initiated have to come to these recordings to really know Coltrane, and to appreciate the real depths and thresholds of modern jazz. So take a chance, buy it anyway, and sometime, earlier or later, you WILL finf yourself astounded and humbled simultanously.