In this album, Coltrane was playing hard bop— the major jazz style of the 1950s— and showed he could do it better than anyone. In later albums (I’d single out Giant Steps, My Favorite Things and A Love Supreme), he showed he could move beyond hard bop and point jazz to new directions altogether.
Coltrane and Monk were my favorites when I was a teenager. Now I listen to NPR (GASP!!!) at work at night when it plays jazz. When I was a zoomie E4 in 1970 on Kadena AB one of my colleagues was John Gladstone Heyliger lll. He was(is?) a nephew of Thurgood Marshall and an artist. He painted a really fine mural of Coltrane on his barracks wall when we were given access to paint and brushes to paint our rooms.
I’ve been listening to - and playing along with ( I play drums ) - Soultrane for the past week or so . Very fine album which I’d overlooked in the past but just recently discovered . Definitely 4/5 stars in my opinion .