Apart from the occasional quote I've not actually seen any full reviews from Coltrane's 1961 tour of Britain, until Jazz Monthly from February 1962. Norman Granz's tours of Europe always had more than one headline act. In late '61 it was the double bill of Trane and Dizzy Gillespie. The first concert at the Gaumont State cinema on Kilburn High St in London was one week after Trane's last night at the Village Vanguard in NYC. The four night run that gave us Live at the Village Vanguard. In another blog entry John Coltrane's Only British Tour Steve Gray remembers the Walthamstow show, but as a schoolboy, not a critic. This review by Ronald Atkins paints an accurate picture of the Jazz music scene at the time, and the excitement of hearing the very modern in the shape of John Coltrane and his quintet. John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie in Britain by Ronald Atkins Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the John Coltrane Quintet's music, which set it apart from any
Jamo Spingal