346: Bags & Trane, by Milt Jackson & John Coltrane

Milt Jackson & John Coltrane (USA)
Bags & Trane (1961)
8 tracks, 56 minutes (1988 CD version)
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When you read the hard info about this album, the auspices are good. It’s a double-header from vibes player Milt ‘Bags’ Jackson and saxophonist John Coltrane, whose statuses as the all-time greats of their instruments can hardly be in question; the rhythm section is an impeccable trio of Paul Chambers on bass, Hank Jones on piano and Connie Kay on drums; it was even recorded in that magical year of 1959, although it didn’t see light for another couple of years. Stats like that would lead to some pretty high expectations. And you know what? It lives up to every one of them.

How much more can you say about Bags & Trane than that it’s…Bags, and Trane? It was the only time the two masters met in the studio, and of course it’s fantastic. It was before Coltrane’s big musical/spiritual/cerebral revolution that tore the fabric of jazz and opened up a portal to another universe forever, but still when he was at the top of his game as a hard-bop player, and Bags subtle playing is nevertheless slightly less restrained than when he’s in full-on third stream mode. Both musicians pull the other into their own sphere a little bit, to the detriment of neither and the benefit of the album as a whole. Neither do they suffer from the clash of egos that is a common side-effect of such meetings: both players are as gracious as they are virtuosic, clearly revelling in each other’s skills and allowing room for the magic to take place in its own time.

The two tracks that allow each musician to shine so much are the succinctly named pair of ‘Bags & Trane’ and ‘Bebop’. They both have very different feels. The first is a cool, slinking blues at 120 beats per minute; the second a heavy bop, originally by Dizzie Gillespie, at a stonking 150 beats per minute, but with most of the playing itself in double time. In both settings, each musician’s solos (including turns from Jones and Chambers) could only be their own, unmistakably, but they hit the groove of each track exactly right, even down to their positioning in the solo order. Perhaps most importantly, neither overshadows the other.

It says two things to me. It’s mad that Bags and Coltrane only recorded with each other just this once, as their chemistry feels as if they’ve known and explored each other’s playing from a hands-on basis for years. And then that it just shows what immaculate geniuses the two were; to be able to slip so comfortably into such a close collaboration as if it were no thing, as a mere diversion from their own respective musical journeys, and then to go on just as easily in their separate directions is surely a sign of what other level they were on, able to connect with each other on some telepathic level through the medium of jazz. We’re so lucky that they did decide to come together this one time, to create this record that still makes me as excited to listen to it as I’m sure the jazz fans of 60 years ago were when they first heard this meeting of masters.