John Coltrane played tenor on Miles Davis' monumental Kind of Blue, an album that was a template for the style of modal improvisation to which he would devote himself in the fertile early 60s. A period which would culminate in his career masterpiece A Love Supreme.
The modal approach freed Coltrane to improvise with limitless invention on a sensual carpet of sound and bore immediate (if highly controversial) fruit with "My Favorite Things", his expansive meditation on the popular song from 'The Sound of Music'.
But success in itself did not satisfy Coltrane. He had encountered the music of Ravi Shankar and became entranced by its serenity; a quality he longed to find in his own work. Eventually the two men met and liked each other enormously. Ravi saw much of himself in Coltrane; he admired that the saxophonist had overcome heroin addiction, become a vegetarian, taken to reading Ramakrishna, and had committed himself to a rigorous regime of practice and study.
They discussed Indian classical music and the possibility of recording an album together but their plans came to nothing as Coltrane tragically succumbed to liver cancer shortly before they were due to meet again. Coltrane named his son Ravi, after the sitar legend.
The Coltrane works in this set really grew out of the 'Kind of Blue' experience and are simply captivating. The Ravi Shankar ragas featured here are the magical recordings upon which his reputation was built and include selections from both of the historic Abbey Road sessions in 1956 and 1961.
