Expression (album)

Expression is an album by jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, recorded in early 1967 and released in late September of that year, around Coltrane's birthday, and two months after his death. This was the first posthumous release of a Coltrane recording, and the last album he personally authorized.[5]

Expression
Studio album by
John Coltrane
ReleasedSeptember 1967[1]
RecordedFebruary 15, 1967 & March 7, 1967
StudioVan Gelder (Englewood Cliffs)
GenreFree jazz
Length39:20 original LP
LabelImpulse!
A-9120
ProducerBob Thiele
John Coltrane chronology
Kulu Sé Mama
(1967)		 Expression
(1967)		 Om
(1968)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz[3]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide[4]

Background and reception

All of the pieces on Expression were recorded in early 1967 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ.[6] The track titled "Offering" was recorded on February 15 with Coltrane's quartet, which at the time consisted of Alice Coltrane on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Rashied Ali on drums. "Offering" was re-released, along with the entirety of the February 15 session, in 1995 on Stellar Regions.[7] A week later, Coltrane and Ali recorded duo tracks that would later be released on Interstellar Space (1974) and Jupiter Variation (1978).[8] On March 7, the quartet recorded "Ogunde" and "Number One". The latter did not appear on the original LP release but was added for the CD reissue. "Number One" also appears on Jupiter Variation.[9] The exact recording dates for the two remaining tracks are currently unknown.[10] "Expression" features the quartet, while "To Be" was recorded by the quartet plus Pharoah Sanders and possibly Algie DeWitt on bata drum. On this track, Coltrane plays alto flute, while Sanders plays flute and piccolo.[11]

In May 1967, Coltrane, who had been suffering from liver cancer since mid-1966,[12] and who had canceled a number of concerts that month,[13] "spent days stretched out on a couch, listening back to his recent recording sessions."[14] On July 14, three days before his death, Coltrane met with producer Bob Thiele to finish plans for the album, and suggested the title Expression.[14]

Some writers have heard the music on Expression as acknowledging Coltrane's sense of his own impending death. Coltrane biographer J.C. Thomas wrote that Expression "has an eerie quality of finality, a carefully chosen musical refinement, that seems to sum up Coltrane's career, as if he knew that it might be one of his last recorded statements."[15] According to Ben Ratliff, Coltrane told Thiele that "he wanted nothing on the album's jacket but the titles and names of the musicians. No description or analysis: he was tired of words."[16] He also told Thiele: "By this point I don't know what else can be said in words about what I'm doing. Let the music speak for itself."[17] Ashley Kahn wrote that "Expression serves as (Coltrane's) memorial album on the Impulse label, the thick black border on its cover lending it a sense of bereavement."[18]

AllMusic reviewer Fred Thomas described Expression as "a varied and searching record",[19] and states that the band "was performing in the most spiritually reaching territory Coltrane would aspire to."[19] Thomas also wrote: "It's remarkable that Expression is not some world-weary harbinger of death and sickness, but an endlessly jubilant affair. Even in what must have been a time of tremendous pain and darkness, Coltrane's single-minded quest for understanding and transcendence took him to places of new exploration and light."[19] Biographer Eric Nisenson wrote: "The music sounds as if he had simply turned another corner in his evolution... Expression is in the tradition of his great transitional albums, Giant Steps, Live at the Village Vanguard, and Transition. Sadly, Coltrane would not live to explore the new regions toward which his music was heading."[20]

Track listing

All tracks written by John Coltrane; details regarding recording dates are from The John Coltrane Reference.[21]

No.TitleRecording dateLength
1."Ogunde"March 7, 1967[22]3:38
2."To Be"February 15, 1967[11]16:22
3."Offering"February 15, 1967[23]8:27
4."Expression"Spring 1967[10]10:53
CD reissues bonus track
No.TitleRecording dateLength
5."Number One"March 7, 1967[22]11:55

Personnel

Production
  • Victor Kalin - cover art

References
  1. Billboard Sept 23, 1967
  2. Expression at AllMusic
  3. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 292. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  4. Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 47. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
  5. Porter, Lewis (June 28, 2018). "Deep Dive with Lewis Porter: Considering John Coltrane's 'Lost Album,' From All Directions". WGBO. Retrieved June 30, 2018.
  6. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. pp. 761–767.
  7. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. pp. 763–764.
  8. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. pp. 764–765.
  9. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. pp. 766–767.
  10. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. p. 761.
  11. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. p. 762.
  12. Thomas, J.C. (1976). Chasin' the Trane. Da Capo. p. 214.
  13. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. p. 364.
  14. Porter, Lewis (1999). John Coltrane: His Life and Music. The University of Michigan Press. p. 290.
  15. Thomas, J.C. (1976). Chasin' the Trane. Da Capo. p. 219.
  16. Ratliff, Ben (2007). Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 111.
  17. Brown, Leonard L. (2010). John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom. Oxford University Press. p. 105.
  18. Kahn, Ashley (2007). The House That Trane Built: The Story Of Impulse Records. W. W. Norton. p. 179.
  19. Thomas, Fred. "John Coltrane: Expression". allmusic.com. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  20. Nisenson, Eric (1993). Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest. St Martins Press. pp. 216–217.
  21. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. p. 761. Four titles from Coltrane's spring 1967 recording sessions were released on the album Expression, approved by Coltrane shortly before his death. The recordings were identified on the album as being from sessions on February 15 and March 17, 1967. However, David Wild's research (using ABC-Paramount documentation) found no evidence for a recording session on the latter date, and the correct date is believed to be March 7, 1967. Only 'Ogunde' and 'Number One' were recorded on that date, leaving 'Expression' undated. The rediscovery of the entire February 15, 1967 session allowed us to determine that 'To Be' was not recorded at that session, leaving it undated as well.
  22. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. p. 766.
  23. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. p. 763.
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