A year after the unprecedented release of the
John Coltrane Quartet's
Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, fans get another gift from the vault. The backstory (detailed in the booklet) combined with the unique place it claims in his catalog (chronologically and aesthetically), make it a fascinating, historically significant addition to his discography. In 1964, between the recently completed
Crescent, and six months before the start of the sessions for
A Love Supreme, the
John Coltrane Quartet cut the music on
Blue World. This wasn't an album proper, but music to accompany Quebecois director Giles Groulx's then-unfinished debut feature film, Le Chat Dans le Sac (it had been shot but was still in the editing stages; neither
Coltrane nor his bandmates had seen it). The director, who lionized the saxophonist, reached out through a connection to his bassist
Jimmy Garrison. The session was cut in a single day (June 24, 1964) at
Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio on quarter-inch tape. The director took the tape with him back to Canada, ultimately using only ten of the 37 minutes that appear here (which is available for streaming on the internet). As
Coltrane historian
Ashley Khan notes in his liner essay, this music has been hiding in plain sight ever since.