COLTRANE, John.

Description

July 1966 Japanese concert tour program

Large original vintage program book lavishly produced for John Coltrane’s July 1966 Japanese tour, accompanied by pianist Alice Coltrane, drummer Rashied Ali, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and saxophonist and clarinetist Pharoah Sanders. The album Live in Japan was recorded on this tour (Sankei Hall, Tokyo 11th July and Koseinenkin Hall, Tokyo 22nd July). At the time Coltrane and his quintet were invited to tour Japan in July 1966, he was, according to the Japanese jazz magazine Swing Journal, the most popular musician in Japan, with albums selling as many as 30,000 copies each. The members of the group arrived by plane in Tokyo on 8th Jul and were treated like visiting dignitaries, with several thousand fans greeting the plane. The group’s schedule was grueling, and involved playing seventeen concerts over fourteen days. During the tour, a number of Japanese jazz musicians sat in with the group, and Coltrane and Sanders were presented with alto saxophones by the Yamaha Instrument Company, with the understanding that the musicians would play the instruments and offer advice. Coltrane also participated in at least one press conference, and took time to visit the War Memorial Park in Nagasaki. Despite the exhausting itinerary, Coltrane biographer Eric Nisenson called Coltrane’s Japan tour “the event that was probably the greatest single triumph of his life”.

In original illustrated coated wrappers, staple bound, 25.6 x 36.2 cm, 36 pp. All text in Japanese. There is a tack hole to the top right corner, else in near excellent complete condition, tightly bound and clean. Additional images of the program available on request.