Blue Train (album)

Blue Train is a hard bop jazz album by John Coltrane, released in 1957 on Blue Note Records, catalogue BLP 1577. Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, it is Coltrane's second solo album, the only one he recorded for Blue Note as a leader, and the only one he conceived personally for the label. It has been certified a gold record by the RIAA.

Background
The album was recorded in the midst of Coltrane's residency at the Five Spot as a member of the Thelonious Monk quartet. The personnel include Coltrane's once and future Miles Davis bandmates, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Pianist Kenny Drew had released a trio album the year before on Riverside Records with Chambers and Jones as his sidemen. Both trumpeter Lee Morgan and trombonist Curtis Fuller were up-and-coming jazz musicians, and both would be members of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, although not together. All of the compositions were written by Coltrane, with the exception of the standard "I'm Old Fashioned." The title track is a long, rhythmically variegated blues with a brooding minor theme that gradually shifts to major during Coltrane's first chorus. "Locomotion" is also a blues riff tune, in thirty-two-bar form. During a 1960 interview, Coltrane described Blue Train as his favorite album of his own up to that point.

Legacy
John Coltrane's next major album, 1960's Giant Steps, would break new melodic and harmonic ground in jazz, whereas Blue Train adheres to the hard bop style of the era. Two of its songs — "Moment's Notice" and "Lazy Bird" — demonstrate Coltrane's first recorded use of Coltrane changes, which he would later expand upon on Giant Steps. Musicologist Lewis Porter has also demonstrated a harmonic relationship between Coltrane's "Lazy Bird" and Tadd Dameron's "Lady Bird".

In 1997, The Ultimate Blue Train was released, adding two alternate takes and enhanced content, and in 1999 a 24bit 192kHz DVD-Audio version was issued. In 2003, both a Super Audio Compact Disc version was released, as well as a remastered compact disc as part of Blue Note's Rudy Van Gelder series.

Personnel

 * John Coltrane — tenor saxophone
 * Lee Morgan — trumpet
 * Curtis Fuller — trombone
 * Kenny Drew — piano
 * Paul Chambers — bass
 * Philly Joe Jones — drums