John Coltrane Quartet Ballads Reel To Reel Tape (Ultra Tape) (Use code: FREESHIPPING at Checkout Two Orders or More UK Only)

A.B. Spellman, former administrator for the National Endowment for the Arts, once described Ballads as "some of the most sensitive, heartfelt music that any lover ever sang on a horn." Put simply, most guys don't play the saxophone like John Coltrane.

And even the finest-sounding LPs can't match the fidelity and sonic detail captured by a master tape. Here, with Analogue Production's Ultra Tape 15 ips 1/4-inch analog tape copy, the music sounds its purest and most vital. The tape playback brings crystal clear fidelity to the highest and lowest frequency ranges.

The intense passionate Coltrane interpretation of standards such as "All or Nothing at All," "What's New," "It's Easy to Remember" and the Sinatra classic "Nancy (With the Laughing Face)" are the essence of Ballads. When asked why attempt such an undertaking, Coltrane replied, "Variety."

While it may have been a short detour by Trane before he exploded off into the nether regions of jazz music a few years later, it is still a fantastic document of one of the premier jazz groups of the 1960s.

Recorded December 21, 1961 and September 18 & November 13, 1962 at Rudy Van Gelder Studios.