This is a valuable collection, despite one obvious flaw which we'll come to in a sec. Although we've had the Coltrane Atlantics in a multitude of CD reissues, from the 7CD box set Heavyweight Champion from 1995 to any number of individual repackages, this set, comprising six 12-inch long-playing recordings, all in monophonic sound and on 180gm vinyl, is the best sonic representation yet of this key period in Coltrane's development as a jazz musician. Sadly, it is an incomplete representation, since the original tapes of Coltrane Jazz (released in February 1961), My Favorite Things(released in March 1961) and Coltrane's Sound (released in June 1964) are believed to have been destroyed in the infamous fire at Atlantic's non-air conditioned storage facility in Long Branch, New Jersey in February 1978. The fire destroyed virtually all Atlantic's unreleased masters, alternate takes and session tapes from the label's golden period of 1948-1969. But even this received wisdom paints an incomplete picture: “When we were doing the John Coltrane box set [Heavyweight Champion],” said producer Joel Dorn, “they told us all the session reels and outtakes were gone, supposedly destroyed in the fire. I'd heard the stories. But I came over to the old warehouse to look anyway.” In the event he discovered the supposedly destroyed alternate takes from Giant Steps. For this reissue, they did locate the original mono master tapes for Giant Steps (released January 1960), Bags & Trane (released December 1961), Olé Coltrane (released February 1962), Coltrane Plays the Blues (released July 1962) and The Avant-Garde: John Coltrane & Don Cherry(released April 1962) plus Coltrane Legacy – the 1970 release of previously unissued recordings by the Coltrane quartet, sextet and the Milt Jackson/Coltrane group. But since Coltrane Jazz, My Favourite Things and Coltrane's Sound had gone AWOL, in fairness they did not attempt to wing it using the original LPs as a source, but simply excluded them. The reason was to present fans with the same aural experience that greeted them originally when these albums were first released, since the original mono masters had only been used once when the recordings were first released. In this singular ambition, the box set succeeds. On a like-for-like comparison with the digital releases on Heavyweight Champion, these mono albums score highly, simply because the noise floor of vinyl is preferable to the almost unreal sense of ‘digital black’, and equally, the mono recordings, with their centred sound image, are up-front and alive in a way the stereo sound images (on original vinyl and digital like-for-like comparisons) are not. Each album comes with the original cover art and liner notes plus a full size insert of the original album, which could be framed or simply stuck on the wall, and even though the album My Favorite Things is missing, the set includes a 45rpm replica of the title track released for the jukebox market at the time.