In addition to being bandmates within
Miles Davis' mid-'50s quintet,
John Coltrane (tenor sax) and
Red Garland (piano) head up a session featuring members from a concurrent version of
the Red Garland Trio:
Paul Chambers (bass) and
Art Taylor (drums). This was the second date to feature the core of this band. A month earlier, several sides were cut that would end up on
Coltrane's
Lush Life album. Soultrane offers a sampling of performance styles and settings from
Coltrane and crew. As with a majority of his Prestige sessions, there is a breakneck-tempo bop cover (in this case an absolute reworking of
Irving Berlin's "Russian Lullaby"), a few smoldering ballads (such as "I Want to Talk About You" and "Theme for Ernie"), as well as a midtempo romp ("Good Bait"). Each of these sonic textures displays a different facet of not only the musical kinship between
Coltrane and
Garland but in the relationship that
Coltrane has with the music. The bop-heavy solos that inform "Good Bait," as well as the "sheets of sound" technique that was named for the fury in
Coltrane's solos on the rendition of "Russian Lullaby" found here, contain the same intensity as the more languid and considerate phrasings displayed particularly well on "I Want to Talk About You." As time will reveal, this sort of manic contrast would become a significant attribute of
Coltrane's unpredictable performance style. Not indicative of the quality of this set is the observation that, because of the astounding
Coltrane solo works that both precede and follow Soultrane -- most notably
Lush Life and Blue Train -- the album has perhaps not been given the exclusive attention it so deserves. [JVC Japan issued a companion DVD in 2007.] ~ Lindsay Planer