JAZZ : RETROSPECTIVE : In Brief

**** John Coltrane, “Coltranetime,” Blue Note. First released in 1959 as a Cecil Taylor album, this blowing session--with Taylor, piano, Kenny Dorham, trumpet, Chuck Isreals, bass, and Louis Hayes, drums--is a graphic chronicle of the revolutionary currents then sweeping through jazz. Dorham’s crisply boppish solos are almost obliterated by the maelstrom of energy provided by Coltrane’s soaring flights through the upper harmonies and Taylor’s relentlessly rhythmic piano clusters.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to five (a classic).