Black Pearls: John Coltrane with Donald Byrd and Red Garland Prestige LP

Black Pearls is a fine session from 1958, that catches Trane in an ultra swingin' mood, right smack in the middle of his "Sheets of Sound" period.

 I really like this straight ahead bop session quite a bit.

The centerpiece of the album, which wasn't released until 1964 is "Sweet Sapphire Blues", an 18 Minute producer Bob Weinstock vehicle.

 The blues was almost entirely improvised by Coltrane on the spot, and the track shows off pianist Red Garland to a great extent.

Then Coltrane digs into this blues, along with trumpeter Donald Byrd to offer some very spirited classic jazz, I like the simplicity of the music, Side one seems almost like bop rather than hard bop and quite frankly fizzles out compared to the side 2 side long blues jam.

If you are a Coltrane nut, you want this for the 18 minute jam alone, plus the Red Garland Trio providing backing support is nice, think The Believers and Lush Life, both nice straight ahead bop albums worth acquiring along with Black Pearls.

This particular vinyl copy of Black Pearls is a mid 70's green label prestige that sonically sure sounds sweet, nice crisp bass, well recorded instruments, with hardly any distortion in the upper register.