John Coltrane: A Discography and Musical Biography

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Summary: The best guide to Coltrane's recorded legacy
Review: This is not a conventional narrative of Coltrane's life, or even his recordings. Rather, it is a detailed discography both of released albums and of the many many unreleased recordings that circulate among collectors, and of a large number of recordings that sit in vaults around the world, largely inaccessible to anyone outside the recording industry.

Much of the information corrects the liner notes on releases from various labels, and, in fact, many record companies use the information in this volume when trying to figure out what they have in their vaults. The results are not always perfect: The new Coltrane 7CD box set from Fantasy of live recordings contains several errors in the liner notes. Without this book, you wouldn't know they were there.

The author is part of the Coltrane Syndicate, a group of Coltrane scholars including Wolf Schmaler and Michael Delorme, as well as David Wild (who has also published work on Coltrane's recordings). They are in fact authorized by the Coltrane Family to acquire and document recordings that cannot be released for various legal reasons, so this book is just about the only way to learn about recordings and recording dates (especially live dates) that help patch together Coltrane's works and times.

In addition to all the objective information, there is also a hefty selection of photos, and, even more so, album covers and posters for events, that really serve as a kind of giant scrap-book for the late master.

There is -- and there is unlikely to be -- a better book published on the subject.