My Favorite Things (album)

My Favorite Things is the seventh album by jazz musician John Coltrane, released in 1961 on Atlantic Records, catalogue SD-1361. It was the first album to feature Coltrane playing soprano saxophone, and yielded a commercial breakthrough in the form of a hit single that gained popularity in 1961 on radio, an edited version of the title song, "My Favorite Things." In 1998, the album was a recipient of the Grammy Hall of Fame award.

Background
In March 1960, while on tour in Europe, Miles Davis purchased a soprano saxophone for Coltrane. The instrument had become little used in jazz at that time. Intrigued by its capabilities, Coltrane began playing it at his summer club dates. He would continue to use the soprano sax in the future.

After leaving the Davis band, Coltrane, for his first regular bookings at New York's Jazz Gallery in the summer of 1960, assembled the first version of John Coltrane Quartet. The line-up settled by autumn to McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. Sessions the week before Halloween at Atlantic Studios yielded the track "Village Blues" for Coltrane Jazz and the entirety of this album along with the tracks that Atlantic would later assemble into Coltrane Plays the Blues and Coltrane's Sound.

Music
Released a mere month after Coltrane Jazz, unlike his first two albums for Atlantic, this one contains no original compositions, instead jazz versions of four pop standards. The album was also the first to quite clearly mark Coltrane's change from bebop to modal jazz, which was slowly becoming apparent in some of his previous releases. The famous track is a modal rendition of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. The melody is heard numerous times throughout, but instead of playing solos over the written chord changes, both Tyner and Coltrane take extended solos over vamps of the two tonic chords, E minor and E major, played in waltz time. In the documentary The World According to John Coltrane, narrator Ed Wheeler remarks on the impact that this song's popularity had on Coltrane's career: "'In 1960, Coltrane left Miles [Davis] and formed his own quartet to further explore modal playing, freer directions, and a growing Indian influence. They transformed 'My Favorite Things', the cheerful populist song from 'The Sound of Music,' into a hypnotic eastern dervish dance. The recording was a hit and became Coltrane's most requested tune—and a bridge to broad public acceptance.'"

The standard "Summertime" is notable for its upbeat, searching feel, a demonstration of Coltrane's "sheets of sound," a stark antithesis to Miles Davis' melancholy, lyrical version on Porgy and Bess, and makes use of offbeat pedal points and augmented chords. "But Not For Me" is reharmonised using the famous Coltrane changes, and features an extended coda over a repeated ii-V-I-vi progression.

On March 3, 1998, Rhino Records reissued Coltrane Jazz as part of its Atlantic 50th Anniversary Jazz Gallery series. Included as bonus tracks were both sides of the "My Favorite Things" single, released as Atlantic 5012 in 1961.

Personnel

 * John Coltrane — soprano saxophone on side one and bonus tracks ; tenor saxophone on side two
 * McCoy Tyner — piano
 * Steve Davis — double bass
 * Elvin Jones — drums

Production personnel

 * Nesuhi Ertegün — production
 * Tom Dowd, Phil Iehle — engineering
 * Lee Friedlander — photography
 * Loring Eutemey — cover design
 * Bill Coss — liner notes
 * Bob Carlton, Patrick Milligan — reissue supervision
 * Bill Inglot, Dan Hersch — digital remastering
 * Rachel Gutek — reissue design
 * Hugh Brown — reissue art direction
 * Nat Hentoff — reissue liner notes
 * Steven Chean — reissue editorial supervision
 * Ted Myers, Elizabeth Pavone — reissue editorial coordination