My Favorite Things (album)

My Favorite Things
Studio album by John Coltrane
Released	March 1961
Recorded	October 21, 24, 26, 1960
Genre	Modal Jazz
Length	40:42
Language	Instrumental
Label	Atlantic
Producer	Nesuhi Ertegün
John Coltrane chronology
Coltrane Jazz (1960) My Favorite Things (1961) Africa/Brass (1961)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]

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's playing on 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."^[2] In 1998, the album was a recipient of the Grammy Hall of Fame award.^[3]

Background

In March of 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. ^[4] He would continue to use the soprano sax in the future.

After leaving the Davis band, for his first regular bookings starting at New York's Jazz Gallery club in the summer of 1960 Coltrane assembled the first version of John Coltrane Quartet, the line-up settling to McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums by the fall.^[5] 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.^{[citation needed]} 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 having a solo over the written chord changes, both Tyner and Coltrane taking extended solos over vamps of the two tonic chords, E minor and E major, played in waltz time.^[6] In the documentary The World According to John Coltrane, narrator Ed Wheeler remarks on the difference the popularity this song 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.^{[citation needed]} "But Not For Me" is reharmonised using the famous Coltrane changes, and features an extended coda over a repeated ii-V-I-vi progression.^{[citation needed]}

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.

Track listing

Side one

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"My Favorite Things"	Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Rodgers	13:41
2.	"Everytime We Say Goodbye"	Cole Porter	5:39

Side two

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Summertime"	Ira Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, George Gershwin	11:31
2.	"But Not for Me"	Ira Gershwin, George Gershwin	9:34

1998 reissue bonus tracks

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
5.	"My Favorite Things, Part 1" (single A-side)	Rodgers and Hammerstein	2:45
6.	"My Favorite Things, Part 2" (single b-side)	Rodgers and Hammerstein	3:02

Personnel

• John Coltrane — soprano saxophone on side one and bonus tracks; tenor saxophone on side two
• McCoy Tyner — piano
• Steve Davis — 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

References

1. ^ My Favorite Things (album) at Allmusic
2. ^ Ben Ratliff. Coltrane: The Story of A Sound. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2007. ISBN-13 978-0-374-12606-3, p. 60.
3. ^ Grammy Hall of Fame website retrieved 7 August 2011
4. ^ Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe. Miles: The Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. ISBN 0-671-63504-2, pp. 223-224.
5. ^ Lewis Porter. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999. ISBN 0-472-10161-7, pp. 171-180.
6. ^ Porter, pp. 182-183.

External links

• "John Coltrane, Avant Garde Jazz, and the Evolution of "My Favorite Things" — A thesis paper with musical analysis
• "My Favorite Things, The 50th Anniversary of John Coltrane's Landmark Recording Sessions"
• "My Favorite Things at 50," radio documentary on the 50th anniversary of John Coltrane's rendition of "My Favorite Things."