Personnel: John Coltrane (soprano & tenor saxophones); Tommy Flanagan, Wynton Kelly, McCoy Tyner (piano); Paul Chambers, Steve Davis (bass); Elvin Jones, Jimmy Cobb, Art Taylor (drums).

Producer: Nesuhi Ertegun.

Compilation producer: Patrick Milligan.

Recorded in 1959 and 1960. Includes liner notes by Nat Hentoff.

Digitally remastered by Dan Hersch (DigiPrep).

The importance of John Coltrane as an inexhaustible, groundbreaking improviser cannot be overstated. His distinctive sound, melodic imagination and storied dedication to the craft remain an inspiration both to other saxophonists, and to later generations of jazz musicians.

These landmark sessions--a highly accessible, essential core of the Coltrane legacy--were recorded just after his bracing work with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, and signaled Coltrane's emergence as a dominant and enduring musical force. He reshaped standards like "Body & Soul" and "Summertime" into his own heady, harmonic image. The classic recording of "My Favorite Things," probably Coltrane's most popular, introduced his soaring soprano sax and had pianists scrambling to decipher McCoy Tyner's revolutionary chord voicings. Coltrane's trademark "sheets of sound" cover "Central Park West," and the Afro-Cuban bump of "Like Sonny" (a nod to tenor-titan Sonny Rollins), while other original compositions such as the highly influential "Giant Steps" present radical ideas that musicians still grapple with today.