Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of John Coltrane Available Now
The best pressings have huge space, size and clarity, with Tubey Magical richness befitting the 1967 recording dates of these sessions at Van Gelder Studio.
That Tubey Magic is surely long gone by now, so those of you looking for this kind of sound on a modern pressing should face facts — that ship has sailed.
The Green Label ABC/Impulse label pressings did not retain much of the magic that we heard on the real Impulse pressings, so best to avoid them.
They’re clean but dry and small, not big and bold like the real thing. The CD is probably better.
4 stars: “Recorded at two sessions in early 1967, Expression represents John Coltrane’s final recording sessions just months before his death. It’s remarkable that [the album] is not some world-weary harbinger of death and sickness, but an endlessly jubilant affair. Even in what must have been a time of tremendous pain and darkness, Coltrane’s single-minded quest for understanding and transcendence took him to places of new exploration and light.”