The jazz world is celebrating what would have been John Coltrane’s 100th birthday this week and with it comes the news that a tranche of his hitherto unheard live recordings are about to get a proper release.
These are the Tiberi Tapes, a series of recordings made by saxophonist Frank Tiberi of Coltrane playing in jazz clubs in New York and Philadelphia in the early 1960s. Tiberi started recording Coltrane in 1960 and over the next five years built up a substantial collection.
In an essay by music historian Ashley Kahn, Tiberi explained that though he had all the great man’s records, his live performances were on a different level entirely. “To me they were not anywhere near the kind of playing and inspiration that he would display at a club.”
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So on a portable reel-to-reel tape machine, Tiberi went from club to club on a mission to capture Coltrane at his live improvisational best: “My main purpose of recording him was to really, to get information and harmonic values, so that I could be able to really play myself.”
The tapes began to take on something of a mythic reputation, especially after Coltrane’s early death in 1967. Now, at last, the public at large will be allowed to hear them – they’re getting a full release in November through Impulse! Records.
However, it should be noted that the recordings themselves aren’t of the pristine, straight-from-the-mixing-desk quality that many listeners are used to in the 21st Century. They were recorded on comparatively primitive equipment in noisy clubs, and the balance often favours Coltrane’s sax and the drums at the expense of bass and piano.
Still, for Coltrane aficionados this is very much the holy grail. Just 11 selections from Tiberi’s huge library are to be released in November – his entire archive extends to 80 reels and over a day’s worth of music. But they include two versions of Giant Steps, recorded at radically different tempi, as well as readings of Thing In D Flat, Lover, West 42ndStreet and Impressions.
Anyway, The Tiberi Tapes: The Complete Recordings is out on November 6 on a four-LP set, a three-CD set or digitally. There is also a limited-edition, hand-numbered edition out in early 2027.
