Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane

Featuring: Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner

condition (record/cover): NM / NM

Paste-on sleeve.

Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane together on stage - the 1961 partnership that scandalized the critics and thrilled everyone with functioning ears, preserved here on the collectors' label Historic Performances. The Coltrane-Dolphy front line remains one of the great pairings of the era and one of its most consequential: two obsessive searchers pushing each other nightly past the previous night's limit, the "anti-jazz" headlines of the day now reading like unintentional advance praise. For decades the official documentation of this partnership was painfully thin - a Vanguard album, scattered tracks - which is exactly why releases like this circulated among the faithful like samizdat, cherished for preserving what the industry had not bothered to. The mountain-of-the-gods title suits the contents without much exaggeration.

For serious collectors of either discography - and the overlap is total, as it should be - a necessary document of a legendary, transformative collaboration. Volume Two of the pilgrimage.