My latest musical obsession is John Coltrane playing “My Favorite Things”, something he did fairly often from the recording of the My Favorite Things album in 1960 up until his death in 1967. Coltrane breathed new life into the Sound of Music classic every time he touched it. This Public Radio Broadcast from 2010 outlines the history of Coltrane and “My Favorite Things” – in 1960 someone in a Lower East Side club gave Coltrane sheet music for the song (The Sound of Music was a hit Broadway play at the time and the movie version would not appear until 1965), and he brought it to his band. There are at least 18 commercially released versions of Coltrane playing the song, from the roughly 3-minute single to the mammoth 34+ minute recording on The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording.

My *ahem* favorite version so far comes from the Newport Jazz Festival in 1963, one of two Newport sets (the other from ’65) featured on this album. A compilation of sorts, this particular disc features tracks that were largely previously released. Whether that picture of Coltrane ripping soprano sax on the cover is from one of these dates or not, it gives you a pretty good idea of what’s inside. The 1963 set eases in with Eckstine’s “I Want to Talk About You”. Expressive and warm, McCoy Tyner plays the perfect piano accompaniment to Coltrane, who solos with great confidence in the back half of the track. Then “My Favorite Things” clocks in around 17 minutes. Coltrane just punches the shit out of this thing. He’s fluttering, carrying the melody to new heights and pulverizing the theme. Around 16 minutes the exploration resolves into the theme in a turn that’s as brilliant as that of any jam band (I’m thinking of 2 in particular) might play decades later.

In some ways the gem of this disc is the inspired 23-minute “Impressions” following the title track, having only been previously released at a truncated 15 minutes. This track was good enough to warrant its own Coltrane album while he lived, and this take features a riled-up Roy Haynes on drums and cooks hard enough to earn its runtime.

You can tell, at the end of the 1965 take on “My Favorite Things”, that the crowd is loving it and has to be reminded of curfew by the announcer, who notes that “it’s the witching hour and time for all of you to go home” (maybe the band was cutoff?). I don’t think this version is quite as great, though it may at times stretch out a little further. To me it just doesn’t match the strength and aplomb of the 1963 version. Still, it’s one of the Greats doing what he does best, and tracking down Coltrane’s takes on this song is proving to be a rewarding past-time.

Listen to My Favorite Things here.