The Gentle Side

Morning kitchen listening with The Gentle Side of John Coltrane. One of my favorite albums of all time. I've been especially playing this in the morning while drinking tea since the mid 1970's. 

This double album compilation came out in 1975 and I bought it at 3rd Street Jazz in downtown Philadelphia. It was quite the revelation when we discovered that store in the mid 1970's and it was one of our go to places for buying records. There was a large wall on one side of the store that was completely covered by John Coltrane albums facing outward. It was an awesome display. The people at the store were very knowledgeable about jazz and pointed us in the right direction as we developed our jazz collection.

Sometime in the 1990's I got the CD version of this album. This album has always been in high rotation and contains some of Coltrane's best lyrical music which was created for the body and the mind. Also this gentle side of his music was every bit as intense and thought provoking as anything he recorded.  I was very impressed with the selections from his session with the vocalist Johnny Hartman and would later obtain that album too. So many classic ballads on the collection.

After playing the CD in the morning I went upstairs to the 3rd floor in the afternoon and played the vinyl version. Oh my god, his horn sounded perfect.