John Coltrane - Transition

Musically, Transition finds John Coltrane treading water between the lyric splendor of A Love Supreme and the turbulent explorations of Sun Ship. Transition finds the band adhering to tune, tempo, tonality, and time in more-or-less traditional manner, whereas two months later on Sun Ship the quartet comes on like the Book of Revelations--completely absorbed in the spirit of sonic exploration. You can hear Coltrane probing away at the heraldic outline of the title theme, very much in the lyric mode of A Love Supreme, but already playing with the extreme interval leaps between upper and lower registers that he was to exploit in such a vivid manner during his vocalized solo on "The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost" (from Meditations). Elsewhere, on the extended suite "Prayer and Meditations," you can hear Coltrane deconstructing a basic swing pulse, while "Peace and After" finds the saxophonist trying to distill these enigmatic explorations into a pure lyric chant, that persisted throughout all his subsequent work, no matter how bold and frenetic. --Chip Stern Amazon.com

An undiscovered classic!!

This CD version is better than the original LP because of its inclusion of Welcome. This is the best post-Love Supreme Coltrane, and one of the best avant garde jazz albums of all time. If you like Coltrane, you must own this. I would rank it as my second favorite Trane album right behind Love Supreme. Very beautiful and very moving. April 26, 2008

more fuel for mr coltrane addiction.

my week long coltrane bender continues. my family tried to do an intervention, but failed to curb my behavior. as the counselor said, "you won't quit until you are ready to quit." darn straight. and i ain't ready to quit. now, as for this album: i have seen more than a couple of statements in print over the years claiming that this is better than "a love supreme." i personally would not say such a thing. but this is certainly a great album. lots of aggressive wailing from mr coltrane here, tempered with passages of meditative beauty. this is the kind of emotional music that digs deep into one while listening. powerful and exquisite. great coltrane. great jazz. great music. don't miss out. April 5, 2007

My Favorite Trane - into The Sun

This album requires a little patience. It seems to unfold after several listens: releasing layer after beautiful layer. If you can't get enough of A Love Supreme - don't hesitate to try Transition. It is a fantastic album! October 28, 2005

TRANSITION: somewhere between

another stunning set of music from John Coltrane and his classic quartet. the pieces on here is very similiar to A Love Supreme, with it's ever flowing structure and tempos drifting easily from piece to piece, but as A Love Supreme contained more of a reflective and peaceful atmosphere, Transistion is a more intense and fiery musical struggle. apparently, there was some tension in the band at the time of these recordings. Coltrane was growing more adventerous with each solo; really reaching out and deep into his soul to conjur up these amazing and sometimes frightening verses. there would really be no looking back at this point in time. Transistion is an essential musical document and really can be viewed as the transition somewhere between A Love Supreme and Meditations. September 24, 2005

Staying with the odyssey

For me "Transition" is less a stage than a culmination of the rhapsodic and frequently rapturous spiritual quest of modern music's most Apollonian visionary. After this leg of the journey, I'm inclined to jump ship. More power to those who are able to join him for the ventures of the final two years, which to my ears (especially during the times I caught him live) became increasingly chaotic, repetitious, and paradoxically predictable. "Transition," on the other hand, has more energy than "A Love Supreme" yet retains sufficient form to produce some of the most engaging tensions in Trane's recorded ouevre. Listen, especially, for the emergence of a subtextual, low-register "counter-voice" during the development of Coltrane's solo on the opening title piece. It's as though the soloist splinters into two personae, creating a remarkable call-response exchange with his own inner voices. The lower register of the horn expresses a snarling and insistent, "Dionysian" claim which is immediately answered by the sublimely ecstatic incantations of the instrument's altissimo harmonics. Whether due to the victory of the transcendent voice or the exorcism of the more threatening, earthly one, the effect is both revelatory and cathartic.

Even a Coltrane album such as this, I've discovered, is "controversial" (at best) among many followers of jazz. All I can say, especially to those who won't go there because they "know what they like," is give it a few more chances. We also tend to like things we know, and "Transition" is a recording worth knowing. February 25, 2004

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