Four for Trane
1965 studio album by Archie Shepp
Four for Trane is a studio album by tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp released on Impulse! Records in 1965. Four of the five tracks were composed and originally recorded by John Coltrane (released on his albums Giant Steps and Coltrane Plays the Blues) and rearranged by Shepp and trombonist Roswell Rudd. The other featured players are trumpeter Alan Shorter (brother of Wayne, here playing flugelhorn), alto saxophonist John Tchicai (Shepp’s fellow member of the New York Contemporary Five), bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Charles Moffett (who had worked extensively with Ornette Coleman). Coltrane himself co-produced the album alongside Bob Thiele. The album was Shepp's first release for Impulse!
Background
According to Coltrane biographer Ashley Kahn, Four for Trane "was a direct result of Coltrane’s intervention, and his faith in the young tenor saxophonist from Philadelphia." Shepp recalled his efforts to get a recording date with Impulse!: "I had spent months trying to get Bob [Thiele] on the phone and he never answered the phone. Every time I'd call, his secretary, Lillian, whom I got to know very well, but at that point I hated her because she said, 'Well he's gone out to lunch,' or 'He's gone home and he's not coming back.' I was living in a fifth-floor walk-up and I'd save a dollar a day just to make ten calls. I'd run down and put a dime in the phone in the drugstore. This went on for months...
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