JOHN COLTRANE QUARTET — Ballads (1962-2013) RM | Platinum SHM-CD | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Throughout John Coltrane's discography there are a handful of decisive and controversial albums that split his listening camp into factions. Generally, these occur in his later-period works such as Om and Ascension, which push into some pretty heady blowing. As a contrast, Ballads is often criticized as too easy and as too much of a compromise between Coltrane and Impulse! (the two had just entered into the first year of label representation). Seen as an answer to critics who found his work complicated with too many notes and too thin a concept, Ballads has even been accused of being a record that Coltrane didn't want to make. These conspiracy theories (and there are more) really just get in the way of enjoying a perfectly fine album of Coltrane doing what he always did -- exploring new avenues and modes in an inexhaustible search for personal and artistic enlightenment. With Ballads he looks into the warmer side of things, a path he would take with both Johnny Hartman (on John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman) and with Duke Ellington (on Duke Ellington and John Coltrane). Here he lays out for McCoy Tyner mostly, and the results positively shimmer at times. He's not aggressive, and he's not outwardly. Instead he's introspective and at times even predictable, but that is precisely Ballads' draw. Sam Samuelson 
Tracklist :
1 Say It (Over and Over Again) 4:18
Frank Loesser / Jimmy McHugh
2 You Don't Know What Love Is 5:15
Gene DePaul / Don Raye
3 Too Young to Go Steady 4:23
Harold Adamson / Jimmy McHugh
4 All or Nothing at All 3:39
Arthur Altman / Jack Lawrence
5 I Wish I Knew 4:54
Mack Gordon / Harry Warren
6 What's New? 3:47
Johnny Burke / Bob Haggart
7 It's Easy to Remember 2:49
Lorenz Hart / Richard Rodgers
8 Nancy (With the Laughing Face) 3:10
James Van Heusen / Phil Silvers
Credits:
Bass – Jimmy Garrison (tracks: 1 to 6, 8), Reggie Workman (tracks: 7)
Drums – Elvin Jones
Piano – McCoy Tyner
Recorded By – Rudy Van Gelder
Saxophone – John Coltrane