Blue Train

"Blue Train" is a 1957 jazz standard composed by John Coltrane. It is the lead track on the album of the same name. Starting with the melody in E-flat minor, the chord progression changes to E-flat major for the improvised section, returning to the original minor key for the reinstatement of the melody. Blue Train is the second studio album by John Coltrane, released in 1958 on Blue Note Records, catalogue BLP 1577. Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, it is Coltrane's second solo album, the only one he recorded for Blue Note as a leader, and the only one he conceived personally for the label. It has been certified a gold record by the RIAA. The album was recorded in the midst of Coltrane's residency at the Five Spot as a member of the Thelonious Monk Quartet. The personnel include Coltrane's once and future Miles Davis bandmates, Paul Chambers on tag]bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, both of whom had played on pianist Kenny Drew's Trio album on Riverside Records the year before. Both trumpeter Lee Morgan and trombonist Curtis Fuller were up-and-coming jazz musicians, and both would be members of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, working together on Blakey's acclaimed Indestructible album among others. All of the compositions were written by Coltrane, with the exception of the standard "I'm Old Fashioned". The title track is a long, rhythmically variegated blues, with a sentimental quasi minor, in fact, based on major chords with flat tenth, or raised ninth, theme that gradually shows the major key during Coltrane's first chorus. "Locomotion" is also a blues riff tune, in forty-four-bar form. During a 1960 interview, Coltrane described Blue Train as his favorite album of his own up to that point.

[Instrumental]