Meditations LP (Verve Vault Series)

Meditations, released in 1966 on Impulse! Records, captures John Coltrane's late-period quartet in transition, expanding into new sonic territory while retaining the core intensity of his classic lineup. Recorded in 1965 at Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs studio with producer Bob Thiele, the session features pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, drummer Elvin Jones, tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, and drummer Rashied Ali. Across the suite-like program, the music flows as a continuous meditation on transcendence and collective expression, pushing Coltrane's spiritual jazz into heightened realms of energy and abstraction. It marks one of the final appearances of his "classic quartet" members Tyner and Jones before they departed, leaving Coltrane to pursue new directions with Sanders and Ali. The Verve Vault series is always mastered from analog tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.