Africa/Brass

Africa/Brass
Studio album by
ReleasedSeptember 1, 1961 (1961-09-01)[1]
RecordedMay 23 and June 7, 1961
StudioVan Gelder Studio
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Genre
Length33:50
LabelImpulse!
ProducerCreed Taylor
John Coltrane chronology
Bags & Trane
(1961)
Africa/Brass
(1961)
Olé Coltrane
(1961)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
Down Beat
(Original Lp release)
[3]
Jazz Shelffavorable[4]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide[5]
Tom HullA−[6]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[7]

Africa/Brass is a studio album by the jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane. It was released on September 1, 1961 through Impulse! Records.[1] Coltrane's working quartet is augmented by a larger ensemble that brings the total to twenty-one musicians. Its big band sound, with the unusual instrumentation of French horns and euphonium, presented music very different from anything that had been associated with Coltrane to date. While critics originally gave it poor ratings, more recent jazz commentators have described it as "amazing"[8] and as a "key work in understanding the path that John Coltrane's music took in its final phases."[9] It is Coltrane's first release for Impulse!.

  1. ^ a b DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Schmaler, Wolf; Wild, David (2013). Porter, Lewis (ed.). The John Coltrane Reference. New York/Abingdon: Routledge. p. 609. ISBN 9780415634632. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
  2. ^ Africa/Brass at AllMusic
  3. ^ Down Beat: July 4, 1963, vol. 30, no. 15
  4. ^ Jazz Shelf website review
  5. ^ Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 46. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
  6. ^ Hull, Tom (n.d.). "Jazz (1940s-50s)". tomhull.com. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
  7. ^ Larkin, Colin (2007). Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195313734.
  8. ^ Schnabel, Tom (September 9, 2014). "John Coltrane's Africa/Brass: Still Amazing". KCRW. Archived from the original on 2020-10-30.
  9. ^ Bogdanov, Vladimir (2002). All Music Guide to Jazz: the definitive guide, Fourth Edition. San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books. pp. 261-262. ISBN 0-87930-717-X.