For John Coltrane, 1957 was a pivotal year. Fired from Miles Davis’s quintet, he went cold turkey, rid himself of drug and booze addiction, experienced a spiritual re-awakening and joined Thelonious Monk’s quartet, beginning a legendary half-year residency at New York’s Five Spot club. It moved Coltrane’s playing to another level, but, apart from some live recordings in poor sound from early in their run and a handful of studio performances, the group’s work was undocumented.

Talk persisted of a live Carnegie Hall recording, but nothing surfaced until extensive cataloguing in the Library of Congress turned up the rumoured Voice of America tapes almost 50 years later. In pristine condition by the standards of the time, they date from five months into the group's run and catch Coltrane, Monk, bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik and drummer Shadow Wilson in prime form over the concert's two sets. With the exception of Sweet and Lovely, all the material was Monk's: Evidence, Monk's Mood, Nutty, Epistrophy, Bye-Ya, Blue Monk and Crepuscule with Nellie.

By then well inside the rhythmic, linear and harmonic angularities of these pieces, Coltrane was in sublime form, focused, flowing and bursting with invention; at the time he must have seemed radical and a revelation, a great player discovering his powers. Monk is also rejuvenated, his stabbing, staccato playing a marvellous contrast to the tenor's. And there's an assurance about the four men's work that remains fresh and undiminished by time.

Ray Comiskey