My Favorite Things (album)

My Favorite Things is the seventh studio 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. An edited version of the title song became a hit single that gained popularity in 1961 on radio.^[4] In 1998, the album received the Grammy Hall of Fame award.^[5]

Background

In March 1960, while on tour in Europe, Miles Davis purchased a soprano saxophone for Coltrane. With the exception of Steve Lacy's late 1950s work with the pianist Cecil Taylor, the instrument had become little used in jazz at that time.^[6] Intrigued by its capabilities, Coltrane began playing it at his summer club dates.^[7]

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 the John Coltrane Quartet. The line-up settled by autumn to McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums.^[8] 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.^[9] 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 My Favorite Things 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.	"Ev'ry Time 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 — double bass
Elvin Jones – drums

Production personnel

Nesuhi Ertegün – production
Tom Dowd, Phil

References

↑ My Favorite Things at AllMusic
↑ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 286. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
↑ Swenson, J. (Editor) (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 47. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
↑ Ben Ratliff. Coltrane: The Story of A Sound. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. ISBN 978-0-374-12606-3, p. 60.
↑ Grammy Hall of Fame website retrieved 7 August 2011
↑ Porter, Lewis. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. University of Michigan Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-0472086436.
↑ Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe. Miles: The Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. ISBN 0-671-63504-2, pp. 223-224.
↑ Lewis Porter. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999. ISBN 0-472-10161-7, pp. 171-180.
↑ 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."

John Coltrane

Discography

Prestige albums	Bahia The Believer Black Pearls The Cats Cattin' with Coltrane and Quinichette Coltrane Dakar Interplay John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane The Last Trane Lush Life Settin' the Pace Soultrane Standard Coltrane Stardust Tenor Conclave Two Tenors Wheelin' and Dealin'

Blue Note albums	Blue Train Coltrane Time

Atlantic albums	The Avant-Garde Bags & Trane Coltrane Jazz Coltrane Plays the Blues Coltrane's Sound Giant Steps My Favorite Things Olé Coltrane

Impulse! albums	Africa/Brass Ascension Ballads Coltrane Cosmic Music Crescent Duke Ellington & John Coltrane Expression First Meditations Impressions Infinity Interstellar Space John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman The John Coltrane Quartet Plays Kulu Sé Mama A Love Supreme Meditations Om Selflessness: Featuring My Favorite Things Stellar Regions Sun Ship Transition

With Miles Davis	Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet Basic Miles 'Round About Midnight Workin' with The Miles Davis Quintet Steamin' with The Miles Davis Quintet Relaxin' with The Miles Davis Quintet Cookin' with The Miles Davis Quintet Miles Davis Quintet at Peacock Alley Milestones 1958 Miles Miles & Monk at Newport Kind of Blue Someday My Prince Will Come Jazz at the Plaza Vol. I

With Ray Draper	The Ray Draper Quintet featuring John Coltrane A Tuba Jazz

With Wilbur Harden	Mainstream 1958 Jazz Way Out Tanganyika Strut

With Thelonious Monk	The Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings Thelonious Himself Monk's Music Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane

Live albums	Afro Blue Impressions Bye Bye Blackbird The European Tour Live at Birdland Live at the Half Note: One Down, One Up Live! at the Village Vanguard Live at the Village Vanguard Again! The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings Live in Japan Live in Paris Live in Seattle Newport '63 New Thing at Newport The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording The Paris Concert Offering: Live at Temple University

Compilations	Alternate Takes The Best of John Coltrane The Classic Quartet: The Complete Impulse! Recordings Coltrane for Lovers The Coltrane Legacy The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis with John Coltrane The Prestige Recordings Countdown: The Savoy Sessions Dial Africa: The Savoy Sessions Feelin' Good Gleanings Gold Coast The Heavyweight Champion: The Complete Atlantic Recordings High Step The Major Works of John Coltrane Jupiter Variation Ken Burns Jazz: John Coltrane The Last Giant: Anthology Living Space To the Beat of a Different Drum Trane's Blues Trane's Modes

Compositions	"26-2" "Alabama" "Equinox" "Giant Steps" "Impressions" "Lazy Bird" "Moment's Notice" "Mr. P.C." "Naima" "Ogunde"

Documentaries	The Church of Saint Coltrane The World According to John Coltrane Trane Tracks: The Legacy of John Coltrane

Related	Coltrane changes Sheets of sound Ravi Coltrane Alice Coltrane Flying Lotus Dix Hills home Philadelphia house 5893 Coltrane asteroid John W. Coltrane Cultural Society Blues for Coltrane: A Tribute to John Coltrane Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane

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