John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" is the moment he fully became himself—abandoning hard bop for modal exploration, introducing his soprano sax, and forming the classic quartet that would redefine jazz. It's a spiritual document disguised as a standards album, and if you've never heard Coltrane reach for the infinite through a cheery show tune, tonight is the night.
The first time you hear John Coltrane take up the soprano saxophone on “My Favorite Things,” it sounds like a man discovering a new voice. That reedy, almost vocal tone cuts through the air differently than his tenor—more plaintive, less obviously powerful. He’d picked up the instrument only months before this session, during a European tour, but you’d never know it from the way he turns Richard Rodgers’s waltz into a 13-minute meditation.
The session took place at Atlantic Studios in New York City, October 21–24, 1960. Nesuhi Ertegun produced; Tom Dowd engineered, capturing the sound with his characteristic clarity. Coltrane had just assembled the quartet that would become legendary: McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on bass, Elvin Jones on drums. This was their second recording together—the first was Coltrane’s Sound, cut earlier that same month but released later. The telepathy is already there.
What makes the title track so radical isn’t just its length. It’s the vamp. Tyner locks into a two-chord ostinato that never resolves, and Coltrane spirals over it for chorus after chorus. No chord changes, no turnarounds—just pure melodic invention over a static harmony. Jones plays with a rolling, polyrhythmic intensity that sounds like the drums are breathing. You can hear the band reaching for something beyond the song.
The rest of the album is no afterthought. “Everytime We Say Goodbye” gets a reading so tender it almost aches, Coltrane on tenor this time, Tyner’s left hand providing the richest of beds. “Summertime” is darker and more angular than you remember—Coltrane bends notes like he’s trying to wrench meaning from the air. “But Not for Me” closes the set with a relaxed swing that proves he could still play standards straight, if that’s what he wanted.
But it’s not what he wanted. Not anymore. This album marks the end of Coltrane’s hard bop period and the beginning of everything that followed—A Love Supreme, Ascension, the late cosmic works. He was already moving toward something larger, and “My Favorite Things” was the door.
Tom Dowd later said the band barely rehearsed the title track before rolling tape. Coltrane just explained the vamp, counted it off, and they played. That’s the magic—the sound of four men finding each other in real time, trusting the music to take them somewhere they hadn’t planned. You put the needle down on side one, and you’re not sure where you’ll be when it lifts. Fifty minutes later, you’re changed.
Why did John Coltrane start playing the soprano saxophone on My Favorite Things?
Coltrane picked up the soprano for the first time in 1960 after hearing Steve Lacy and wanting a new tonal palette. He found its piercing, vocal-like quality perfectly suited for long, incantatory solos over static harmony, and it became his primary voice for the next several years.
What makes the recording of My Favorite Things different from Coltrane's earlier work?
Unlike his earlier hard bop albums, My Favorite Things strips away complex chord changes in favor of a single vamp or pedal point, allowing Coltrane to improvise endlessly without harmonic interruption. It's the clearest early document of his move toward modal and spiritual jazz.
Is the My Favorite Things quartet the same as the classic Coltrane quartet?
Yes—this is the first album to feature the classic quartet of Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and Steve Davis. Davis was later replaced by Jimmy Garrison, who joined in 1962 and played on A Love Supreme. But the chemistry was already fully formed here.