This impressive set could be seen as a response to the recent 1963: New Directions (see Jazzwise 238), but there are reasons why it may not be as successful as that collection. Even if Verve/Impulse!'s subtitle was perhaps overselling its 1963 contents, nevertheless Coltrane was then under an exclusive contract, with a stable group and sympathetic production support. In 1958, his Prestige contract didn't prevent him from recording as a sideman with Gene Ammons, Wilbur Harden (three times on Savoy), George Russell (Decca), Cecil Taylor (United Artists), Ray Draper (Jubilee), Michel Legrand and Miles (both on Columbia). As pointed out in Jazzwise 239, the session with Kenny Burrell was another sideman date, which is however included here.

What was particularly notable about Trane's work in 1958 is that, having kicked heroin and then spent nearly six months with Monk before rejoining Davis, he was absolutely on top of his horn. No more the occasional stumbles or the sometimes disjointed thinking of 1955-57, he was clearly practising 25 hours a day and anything he conceived he could play. There are several stunning passages here where, having chosen an already uptempo, he proceeds to double-time so faultlessly that the clearly articulated individual notes blur into those famous “sheets of sound”. But, in other ways, it's clearly a transitional period, at least as far as recordings, for the format of every track is that of a “blowing session”. In most cases, the length of Coltrane's solo is matched by the other horns (where present) or, in the quartet tracks, by the pianist and bassist. With the possible exceptions of Burrell and Flanagan, none of the other soloists hold the attention, not Garland or Byrd, the more senior Harden or the very young Hubbard. The repertoire is either blues of different tempos or song standards of greater or lesser obscurity, allegedly because Coltrane learned not to entrust originals to the copyright machinations of Prestige, saving them for his move to Atlantic. Virtually the only hint of his oncoming modal phase is on the Brazilian standard ‘Bahia’ but, if you concentrate on the tenor, this is clearly playing that needs to be heard.