John Coltrane – Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album

The music here is excellent. I could listen unlimited takes of Impressions, they're all great. I suspect we'd have heard it decades prior had ABC not undertaken that borderline criminal act of tossing unreleased Coltrane masters in the early 70s. I didn't know about that til reading Ashley Kahn's liner notes. It's frustrating to know that real stereo tapes existed at one point.

This record sounds fantastic! Far exceeded expectations, wow!!! A must purchase for any Coltrane fan.

The sound is great but only when you consider it was sourced from a recording that didn't have much attention put by RVG. It is still very enjoyable.

My press is flat and clean , sounds dynamic and balanced equal to anything else from this time period , very nice RVG recording even though this is a mono backup tape , the music is top notch Trane if u are a fan, u will love this set. Record one sounds like a complete release and record 2 ( alt takes) are nice also , def something I will listen to again but not essential to a casual fan, so the single disc version may b a better choice. Packaging is good not sure why people are upset about it, not that big of a deal for me … anyhow if ur a fan of this period of Coltrane then ur going to love this session!

I think a lot of conflicting feelings people have about this record stem from just how high quality the presentation and design of the physical product is. No matter what you think about the session, its impossible to deny that the design that went into this product is of a quality that would have been fitting had they truly rediscovered a lost profound career highlight of a recording.

This is not a profound career highlight, but it is still a wonderful release and a tremendously valuable recording of one of Earth's all-time great musical quartets. If anything, this recording shows just how much a 'thin' set of 'solid' recordings from this quartet padded by a ton of alternate takes still ends up cutting deeper than the absolute best works of a vast majority of recording artists.

Personally, I so love this quartet's balance of intellectualism, masculinity, and emotional sensitivity that I would probably even enjoy a 'lost recording' of them running scales and smoking cigarettes. My only gripe with this product is actually with how the engineering team handled the treble on what made it to the pressing plant. To my fellow sound engineers I would joke that what we have here is a very interesting jazz cymbal record featuring some great sax and piano accompaniment.

I have to assume that the tape was not in the best shape and someone in the monetary driving seat was paranoid about releasing something that sounded too 'lo-fi' or damaged, and they overcompensated and tried to bring up something, anything, >7k and the only thing left up there was the ride and hi-hat. Ah well, thank god for the treble knob on the mixer. Its just the kind of engineering faux pas that you don't expect from John Coltrane on Impulse.

Is there anyone else with two "Side B" labels on the second LP of this album?

Some observations about Both Directions at Once / The Lost Album.

The packaging is an example of a graphic artist focusing on creative design without sufficient attention to function. This is particularly crucial in packaging design.

The cutouts are susceptible to tearing. Check out the cutout on Ornette Coleman’s ”Free Jazz.”

The matte finish will pick up grime and smudging more readily than the glossy finish applied to most album covers.

Over time, the four-square-foot separate liner notes will have a tendency to fray or end up lost. When trying to read the notes, this poster-size sheet is cumbersome. Another example of hip design over mundane function.

The track list on the back cover set as a block is typographically interesting, but certainly not as easy to read at a track list set in columnar form,

Then there is the question of the value of this music.

Recorded on 6 March 1963, it was sandwiched between “Coltrane” recorded in April and June 1962 and “A Love Supreme” recorded on 9 December 1964. These two albums are among the best Coltrane assembled and released in his life time. Some aficionados consider “A Love Supreme” his all-time greatest recording achievement.

There are fourteen tracks on the current vinyl release: seven compositions plus seven alternate takes. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future a CD will be released with the entire recording session.

How much new musical ground is covered in this release? Is this music deserving of Ashley Kahn’s approximately 4,500 word magazine-article length appreciation? And no disrespect of Ashley, who is the author of “A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album,” and who, in fact, teaches a semester-long course on “A Love Supreme” at NYU.

And why didn’t Coltrane assemble a new album from this session or include any of the tracks on his seven subsequent albums released before his untimely death.

I’ll leave that judgment to the ears of all who listen to this music. Anything Coltrane recorded is worthy of our attention.

I wonder, however, whether this album isn’t an example of clever, over-hyped marketing. Marketing into which I bought.

Maybe Ravi Coltrane put it best, quoted by Ashley:

“To my ears, it was a kicking-the-tires kind of session.”

It sounds terrific to me, in of hi-fidelity. It's another wonderful document of the power of 'Trane. It echoes some of the tradition of the past (Soul Train/Blue Train and certainly Giant Steps), and it absolutely fits right in with some of the other work he was doing more closely before and after this date (My Favorite Things/Crescent and even A Love Supreme a tad). The quartet is absolutely perfect for 'Trane, imho: McCoy Tyner proved to be the perfect foil to Coltrane's soloing. Coltrane may be the genius and "fearless leader," but Tyner is amazing every step of the way. A side note: there are a few cuts where Tyner sits out, which prove equally interesting--perhaps even more so to jazz afficianados who thirst for glimpses of 'Trane stretching out in different ways. Coltrane was certainly a jazz intellectual: continually exploring the nuances of a song, playing it different at every turn, aware of the traditions of the past yet insatiably yearning to turn the whole room upside-down with his 'free"-ness, which was barely containable at this point (perhaps contained only by RVG's hand in pushing the structure of a "record," as opposed to just letting the tape capture whatever came during a live date). And it's impossible to listen to Coltrane and not be intellectual stimulated and challenged. Yet, the first thing that hits you is a visceral, emotional response. Hearing the accomplished, confident 'Trane here is to step into a building where, far off in the distance, something incredibly magnetic instantly pulls at you in a way you simply cannot understand with your mind, only with your heart. You wind your way through the halls, up the stairs, down the stairs, and, finally, into the space 'Trane and Co. occupy. You wonder if you'll leave this place with everything you brought into it: certainly, parts of you are melting and puddling at your feet. And perhaps that's exactly the point. You will not leave as you came; you will leave with something new, different, better, inside you. You leave with 'Trane.

Looks like they really crammed a lot of music onto each side. Wondering if the sound quality takes a hit because of it.