John Coltrane - Olé Coltrane

The final John Coltrane album for Atlantic Records, Olé Coltrane consists of three tracks, one of them side-long. "Olé" is very close in spirit to Coltrane's own rendition of "My Favorite Things", as both take on popular forms of music and twist them through the lens of meditative, almost drone like avant-garde jazz. Like Coltrane would for "My Favorite Things", he plays soprano saxophone here. And when Eric Dolphy (here credited as George Lane for contractual reasons) was in Trane's band, he'd play flute for both tunes. Here he is the first soloist as he delivers a short but sweet solo, followed by a sourer trumpet outing by Freddie Hubbard. There are two bassists on the album, one of them playing lead bass while accompanied by the rest of the band.

"Dahomey Dance" is a lot more straightforward jazz number, featuring a very delicate horn heavy head followed by vague blues vamp where hornmen - Trane on tenor; Hubbard on trumpet and Dolphy on alto sax - get to solo, followed by McCoy Tyner on piano. The pianist contributes "Aisha", a lot more composed tune, a slow soft ballad, with understated brush work from Elvin Jones and some worthwhile leads from Hubbard and Dolphy. A very strong effort.