Coltrane: Sun Ship

[robert h.]

I am no audiophile, but the channel separation seems a little off to me too along with the "distant" sound issues. It is very noticeable on headphones, but not so much on speakers. Wonder why RVG wasn't in on this session? Doctor's appt. maybe?

Coltrane recorded so much during this period that sometimes RVG's studio was booked and he had to go elsewhere.

RVG's wasn't exclusive to Coltrane, you know, and if he got the urge to record, Van Gelder couldn't just cancel another artist for him at a moment's notice.

Also, although it's not likely that Sunship was a case of this, sometimes Coltrane booked his own studio time because Impulse couldn't foot the bill for the massive amount of recording he was doing. he was recording far more than his contract provided for and sometimes, despite Theile's efforts to convince the record company, they just wouldn't do more speculative recording.

Edited July 20, 2006 by robert h.

[mikeweil]

Released in 1971, produced by Ed Michel. Recorded at RCA Victor Studios, New York, engineer not credited. I wonder why it wasn't recorded at Rudy's?

Thanks, Jack - I could have thought of Ed Michel .....

David Wild assumes in his CD liner notes that the Van Gelder studios might have been occupied that day - Coltrane was pretty spontaneous with studio trips.

[sidewinder]

This one has long been a favourite of mine - bought an original ABC-Impulse LP deletion from the Munich zweitausendeins store in the early 1980s for something like 3 D-Marks !

Edited July 20, 2006 by sidewinder

[jazzypaul]

According to AMG, this album went #186 on the Billboard pop charts, which is pretty mind-boggling.

Guy

Not really, if you think about it. It was an interesting time for music. Remember that A Love Supreme was a gold record, as was Bitches Brew. Considering that a huge seller (and a gold record back then was a BIG FREAKING DEAL) almost always means a few more big sellers, #186 for a week or two makes a bit of sense. Especially if you consider a rush of first week or first month sales. Hell, the first Bad Plus album made it to #11 on Amazon's sales list for a week, and that came out less than 5 years ago!

Even the rock albums that were getting sales awards at that time were pretty amazing records: Live Dead and Skull & Roses by the Grateful Dead were both big sellers, as were records by Santana, CSN&Y (and Deja Vu wasn't exactly the easy listening that their first album was) and Jefferson Airplane.

The really shocking one for me around that time is the fact that Loaded by The Velvet Underground never did better. Especially considering the fact that three of the tunes on that album have become bona fide rock classics. Still, I don't think that Loaded ever even cracked the Billboard top 200 chart.