John Coltrane - Black Pearls

European CD reissue.

In addition to their positions of importance in the Miles Davis quintet of the mid-Fifties, John Coltrane and Red Garland recorded a series of studio dates for Prestige in 1957 and ’58. Here, as in several of the others, Paul Chambers is the bassist and Arthur Taylor the drummer, with Donald Byrd on trumpet making it a quintet.

There are only three numbers: the title song "Black Pearls"; an extremely swift version of "Lover, Come Back to Me"; and the fast "Sweet Sapphire Blues" which begins with Garland soloing from the gitgo in a long, up-beat exploration before Trane unfurls his "sheets of sound." Byrd gets into that rapid-fire mode, in and among his more evenly-cadenced lines, and Chambers (plucked) and Taylor (brushes into sticks) solo before Garland ends it with a riff credited to Prestige’s then-president, Bob Weinstock.