Coltrane was pretty unequivocal in his love for Ornette Coleman and his music. He led a pick-up group as part of the bill that included Coleman's and a group led by Cecil Taylor on 28 November 1959 at New York's Town Hall, and since then moved in incremental steps towards embracing free jazz, which he did in the final years of his life. He began his journey with tentative steps, actually taking lessons from Coleman at $30 a time, and on 28 June and 8 July 1960, he recorded this album with a pick-up band of Coleman associates, including Don Cherry who shares album credit. On it they recorded three Coleman tunes, one by Thelonious Monk and an original by Cherry. It was on these sessions that Coltrane's soprano sax made its first appearance (on ‘The Blessing’ and ‘The Invisible’). Interestingly, at this stage, Coltrane chose three Coleman tunes that did have accredited chord progressions on which to improvise – he wasn't kicking off quite yet into total freedom – choosing the two aforementioned tracks and ‘Focus on Sanity’. However, by 1965, Coltrane was improvising without pre-arranged chord progressions, so this album represents an important yet relatively unacknowledged way station on his path towards freedom. There's a further version of ‘The Blessing’ plus ‘The Invisible’ taken from the Ornette Coleman album Something Else!!! included as bonus tracks to underline how closely Coltrane was listening and learning from Coleman, plus ‘Focus on Sanity’ from The Shape of Jazz to Come plus yet another ‘The Blessing’ from Coleman's legendary Hillcrest sessions.