About
John Coltrane's tenor saxophone solo on "Impressions" is one of the defining performances in jazz history. Recorded live at the Village Vanguard in November 1961, his solo stretches across an extraordinary 31 choruses of the 32-bar AABA form at a blazing 272 BPM. The composition is a contrafact built on the chord changes of Miles Davis's "So What," retaining that tune's progression of D Dorian and E-flat Dorian modes. Over the course of this extended improvisation, Coltrane cycles through waves of intensity, building from relatively restrained thematic statements to sheets of sound that push the boundaries of saxophone technique. McCoy Tyner's piano accompaniment shifts between chordal support and open, pedal-point voicings, while Elvin Jones drives the performance with a ferocious polyrhythmic pulse. The recording demonstrated that extended modal improvisation could sustain artistic coherence at the highest level.
John Coltrane was 34 to 35 years old at the time.
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