How I Heard It

On June 29 th “Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album by John Coltrane” was released the last new Coltrane recording to be uncovered was “Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall” in 2005.   The importance of the Carnegie hall recording was a demonstration of the months of daily practice that Coltrane and Monk performed in 1957 and the residence at the Five Spot that year. Coltrane “During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life.” The importance of this release was that it was made a day before the seminal album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman Impulse! A-40, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013.   A little more than a month latter (April 29, 1963) Coltrane recorded "After the Rain" released on the album impressions.     This recording was made during Coltrane’s nightly residence at Bird land (19...

When one thinks of Jazz Organ, Jimmy Smith Wailing at the Hammond b-3 immediately comes to mind. The Hammond organ wasn’t manufactured until 1935, and many jazz keyboard pioneers found employment in churches and movie theaters especially during the Silent film era. Mary Lou Williams, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Count Basie and possibly James P. Johnson* come to mind. The Organ at W.C. Handy’s birthplace a log cabin in Florence, Alabama William Christopher Handy studied organ and music theory at an early age. He also played organ in his father's church, Florence's Greater St. Paul A.M.E. church Mary Lou Williams, At the age of 3, after the family moved to Pittsburgh, (she) began playing spirituals and ragtime on a pump organ while sitting on her mother's knee. http://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/30/obituaries/mary-lou-williams-a-jazz-great-dies.html?pagewanted=all Earl Hines studied classical piano early in life but was such a quick study he was playing t...