Crescent is a 1964 studio album by jazz musician John Coltrane, released by Impulse! as A-66. Alongside Coltrane on tenor saxophone, the album features McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (double bass) and Elvin Jones (drums) playing original Coltrane compositions.
Coltrane does not solo at all on side two of the original LP; the ballad "Lonnie's Lament" instead features a long bass solo by Garrison. The album's closing track is an improvisational feature for Jones (with sparse melodic accompaniment from Coltrane's tenor sax and Garrison's bass at the song's beginning and end): Coltrane continued to explore drum/saxophone duets in live performances with this group and on subsequent recordings such as the posthumously released Interstellar Space (with Rashied Ali).
Legacy
An earlier version of "Lonnie's Lament" appears on Afro-Blue Impressions, and an almost hour-long version of "Crescent" was recorded on Live in Japan. The entire album was collected on The Classic Quartet: The Complete Impulse! Recordings. Coltrane later recorded the song "After the Crescent", which appeared on 1978's To the Beat of a Different Drum.
The title track was later covered by Alice Coltrane for 2004's Translinear Light and McCoy Tyner on his 1991 album Soliloquy. Tyner recorded it again live for the albums McCoy Tyner Plays John Coltrane: Live at the Village Vanguard and Live at Sweet Basil. Guitarist Steve Lukather is the soloist on the version recorded for the 2005 tribute album A Guitar Supreme. The SFJAZZ Collective covered four of the songs on their SFJAZZ Collective 2, with Nicholas Payton and Joshua Redman soloing on the title track.
Garrison's widow recalled that this album along with A Love Supreme were the two he listened to the most.
Track listing
All songs composed by John Coltrane and published by Jowcol Music (BMI)
Side one
"Crescent" – 8:41
"Wise One" – 9:00
"Bessie's Blues" – 3:22
Side two
"Lonnie's Lament" – 11:45
"The Drum Thing" – 7:22
Personnel
John Coltrane Quartet
John Coltrane – tenor saxophone
McCoy Tyner – piano
Jimmy Garrison – double bass
Elvin Jones – drums
Technical personnel
Bob Thiele – production
Rudy Van Gelder – recording and mixing
Nat Hentoff – liner notes
Compact Disc release
Michael Cuscuna – production and liner notes
Eric Labson – digital remastering
Joe Alper – photography
Chuck Stewart – photography
Charts
See also
Blue World, an album recorded between Crescent and A Love Supreme released in 2019