The Tiberi Tapes: The First Studio Recording [3xCD]

John Coltrane - The Tiberi Tapes: The First Studio Recording [3xCD]

The Tiberi Tapes will arrive as part of John Coltrane's Centennial celebrations, collecting 11 selections drawn from private recordings made by saxophonist Frank Tiberi in New York and Philadelphia beginning in 1960.

Among the most fabled and mythologized recordings of the last 65 years, the private recordings of Coltrane's group made by Tiberi have long been the subject of jazz world rumor and intense speculation. Tiberi followed Coltrane and his Classic Quartet into clubs in New York and Philadelphia, capturing the otherworldly music being created nightly on his portable tape recorder. For the first time ever, these recordings are being made available, collecting Coltrane performing during a crucial period of his artistic development.

Captured on modest reel-to-reel equipment, these performances trade polish for presence, placing the listener close to the bandstand as Coltrane and his bandmates test, stretch and transform the music in real time. The collection comes with a booklet of essays and images of sheet music. More than a historical artifact, The Tiberi Tapes offers the opportunity to encounter Coltrane in the act of becoming — working through musical possibilities in front of an audience, stretching familiar material into new territory and pursuing ideas with a freedom that could only exist in the moment.