The House That Trane Built - The Story of Impulse Records [Box]

Disc 1
1	Where Flamingos Fly / Gil Evans 5:14
2	Stolen Moments / Oliver Nelson 8:48
3	Greensleeves / John Coltrane 10:00
4	Alamode / Art Blakey 6:49
5	Honeysuckle Rose / Benny Carter 3:53
6	Trey of Hearts / Count Basie 3:45
7	Samba Para Bean / Coleman Hawkins 5:28
8	Too Young to Go Steady / John Coltrane 4:24
9	Snap Crackle / Roy Haynes 4:13
10	Chocolate Shake / Freddie Hubbard 3:59
11	Impressions / John Coltrane 4:36
12	Theme for Lester Young (Aka "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat") / Charles Mingus 5:50
Disc 2
1	My One and Only Love / Johnny Hartman 4:57
2	Salt and Pepper / Sonny Stitt 7:52
3	Forest Flower - Sunrise/Forest Flower - Sunset / Chico Hamilton 10:37
4	T 'N' a Blues / McCoy Tyner 4:06
5	Someone to Watch Over Me / Ben Webster 4:31
6	Sister Mamie / Yusef Lateef 5:29
7	A Love Supreme, Pt. 1: Acknowledgement / John Coltrane 7:45
8	Rapid Shave / Shirley Scott 8:30
9	Los Olvidados / John Coltrane 8:56
10	Ask Me Now! / Pee Wee Russell 2:28
Disc 3
1	Black and Tan Fantasy / Earl Hines 5:14
2	Alfie's Theme / Sonny Rollins 9:45
3	Spanish Rice / Chico O'Farrill 2:47
4	Mama Too Tight / Archie Shepp 5:25
5	Gypsy Queen / Gabor Szabo 5:14
6	Larry of Arabia / Chico Hamilton 5:12
7	Our Prayer / Albert Ayler 4:48
8	Offering / John Coltrane 8:27
9	Journey in Satchidananda / Alice Coltrane 6:37
10	War Orphans / Charlie Haden 6:42
Disc 4
1	Stolen Moments / John Coltrane 6:30
2	The Creator Has a Master Plan / Pharoah Sanders 32:48
3	India / Gato Barbieri 8:57
4	The Rich (And the Poor) / Keith Jarrett 9:26
5	Hard Work / John Coltrane 6:59
6	Walk With Me / Alice Coltrane 7:49

Barnes & Noble

In the program notes to The House That Trane Built: The Best of Impulse Records, producer Ashley Kahn remarks that the label “fit perfectly into the golden age of jazz, that brief window from the late Fifties to the Seventies when more jazz players than ever were alive and active, representing every era of the tradition.” The author of a readable, well-researched history of Impulse (with the identical title) that generated this companion four-CD set, Kahn proves the point, presenting a tasting menu of the label’s many stylistic flavors. He sequences chronologically and idiosyncratically, opening with selections from the five masterpiece albums that launched Impulse in 1961 (Gil Evans's Out of the Cool; Oliver Nelson's Stolen Moments; John Coltrane's Africa/Brass; Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers!!!!!; Benny Carter's Further Definitions) and concludes with commercial fusion in 1976 (John Handy, Hard Work). In between, we hear choice cuts from the legends of mainstream (Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Earl Hines, Clark Terry, Paul Gonsalves, Pee Wee Russell), modernist pace-setters (Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Roy Haynes, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Chico Hamilton, Gabor Szabo, Yusef Lateef, Ahmad Jamal, and Keith Jarrett), and avatars of the free jazz-inspired “New Thing” (Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Pharaoh Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Charlie Haden, and Gato Barbieri). To distill a catalog as diverse as that of Impulse into 38 tracks is a Sisyphean task, and Kahn offers “apologies for all inexcusable omissions.” These include masterpieces from the likes of Ornette Coleman, Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Sam Rivers, Dewey Redman, and Marion Brown. (Had Kahn represented Pharaoh Sanders with a track of reasonable length and not the 32:45 “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” he might have found room for some of these.) And although his decision not to over-represent John Coltrane is laudable, the absence of anything from Crescent is felt. But we’ll excuse Kahn -- his good taste and deep feeling for the zeitgeist are apparent throughout this well-paced, entertaining document. Ted Panken