Long-Lost John Coltrane Record to be Released, Featuring Classic Quartet

More than 50 years after John Coltrane’s death, Impulse! Records is releasing new music from the jazz legend.

The record label had long thought the album to be lost after the tapes it was recorded on were destroyed to create additional storage space at the company. However, the family of Coltrane’s first wife Juanita Naima Coltrane recently found a personal recording that Coltrane had given her, and they alerted the record company. The tapes will be released as the album Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album.

The tapes contain extended recordings from one day in March 1963, on which Coltrane played with the members of what would later be dubbed his Classic Quartet. Members included bassist Jimmy Garrison, drummer Elvin Jones and pianist McCoy Tyner, and the Classic Quartet would release 11 studio albums together—one of which was Coltrane’s magnum opus and spiritual ode to God, faith and love A Love Supreme.

In their live performances, the quartet explored Indian influences and avant-garde modal playing, but their studio recordings are more conservative and consumer-friendly. Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album is unique in that it’s a studio recording that more closely reflects the experimental style of their live sets.

All things considered, Coltrane’s career was relatively short. The saxophonist died at 40 in 1967 of liver cancer, though some have speculated that his death could also be attributed to untreated hepatitis after years of heroin abuse. However, Coltrane recorded 41 studio albums over the course of his twenty-year career. That number does not include the work Coltrane did with other musicians of the era, including Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis.