This was Coltrane's last album, and while it is a truly incredible album, it leaves me with a sense of longing and frustration. Expression deviates quite a bit from his other albums of 1965-67, and seems to be pointing the way to a new road Coltrane was going to take had he not died at 40.

What makes this so frustrating is that the journey he would have taken would have been amazing. The opening track of this album, Ogunde, is a sweeping, rolling ballad that flows with a sense of freedom and majesty that I simply don't hear in his earlier works (though I know others who do). In some ways, this album seems like a logical continuation of his Classic Quartet stuff. However, the rhythms are far freer, and the tonal center is less defined (Alice Coltrane sounds less tied to modality than Tyner). The result is this massive sound that moves along on a more intuitive level, rather than on a logical, metric one (not to say that his music was rigid).

Adding to all this is an excursion by Coltrane into the flute. Here I'm a little ambivalent. His flute playing is not even remotely at the level of his work on tenor or soprano. However, I feel that we hear the foundation of what was to come, and I'm fully prepared to believe that his flute technique would have developed and progressed quickly.

It's amazing that in 1967 after all of his experiments, Coltrane was able to discover yet another avenue to explore in his own playing. This album is a testament to that, and is a must for Coltrane fans.

OK, the music may be wonderful, a spiritual experience and all that, but what my fellow rewiers have forgotten to warn potential buyers about is the fact that this album needs to be remastered as soon as possible - one need only listen to the version of 'offering' released on 'stellar regions' to understand what i'm talking about. In other words: if you are into Rashid Ali's drumming, definetely do not buy this one, for he's the one to suffer most with the poor quality of the sound - his cymbals are hardly audible and, in a general sense, it's as if he were doing some 'percussion' sounds, instead of really thrashing his kit off.

End result: COLTRANE AND BAND 5 STARS - IMPULSE 2 STARS = 3 STARS

Well, no one can accuse Coltrane of not having an imagination. Improvised music is a tricky art. Lack of an immediately identifiable melody can sometimes make improvisation a daunting and annoying venture. Coltrane was a master of this art however and even though his solos were sometimes long winded, each one of them had at least a few areas of pure, unadultered brilliance. "Expression" is not an easy Coltrane album. There is no such thing as an easy Coltrane album but this one poses a real challenge. This album, for being his last is not as atonal as one might think, but if you haven't heard any Coltrane beyond "A Love Supreme", this album is going to blow you away. He is pretty much playing in a quartet setting here, with Pharaoh Sanders only playing on one track. Most reviews of "Expression" say that it gives no clue to where Coltrane was headed, I think it is a fine last album. It doesn't really show where he was headed because if you listen very carefully, this album has a sense of finality to it. Each track seems laden with wispy overtones of desperation, hopeless and acceptance of fate. Coltrane must have known the end was near when he recorded this. The quartet on this album is not the classic quartet. McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones are gone, Jimmy Garrison is the only existing member from the classic quartet. Rashied Ali is on drums and Alice Coltrane on Piano. It is a very different sound from the sound of the Classic Quartet. More spacious. As far as rhythms go, gone is the polyrhythmic thunder of Elvin Jones, Ali plays in more of a panrhythmic fashion, almost making his drumset sound melodic, as opposed to a timekeeper. He is adding to the sound. Alice Coltrane's piano is lush, rolling and spacious. Gone are the wonderful chords of McCoy Tyner, Alice's style is very different, but very effective for what Coltrane wanted to play at that point (listen to the beginning of "Expression" for a good hint of what I mean.) The same goes for Ali. This is truly a wonderful final statement from Coltrane. He even plays flute on a song. All in all a very magnificent 51 minutes, and a little sad too, not only because it was his last album, but because the music is somewhat sad.

This recording, like all others from Coltrane in his last years ('65-'67) is an example of an artist breaking free of vanity and ego, allowing him to go beyond art into a truly sacred realm, no longer concerned with the trivialities and vain illusions that keep others from really creating something tanscendent. I believe that towrads the end of his life he saw through the concept of time and this philosophy translated into his "spontaneous composition" aproach which is beautifuly clear in this recording. He was no longer playing music, he was molding space-time. He and his band take you to the very core of existence through their improvisations found on this and many other recordings.

I'll just chime in the chorus, beautiful spiritual music, "To Be" is one of the most gentle and soothing Coltrane pieces (All you Coltrane Quartet elitists don't know what you're missing, it wasn't all atonal you know!) of all time, as good as the immortal "Naima". Pretty much flawless music as one would expect from the master, I only wish my hero Pharoah Sanders played on more of these. Camilo from D.F. described it best in their review, this is pure, egoless spiritual music, utterly transcendental. I become self conscious now, I fear I repeat myself in my Coltrane reviews here, what can you say about this music that defys all language, all description? Coltrane himself disliked liner notes, preferring for the music to speak for itself (a love supreme being the exception). Great music, not as essential as some other work of this time but still the most incredible music of it's time (or anything since), get Meditations, Sun Ship, Interstellar Space, the live shows, and "The major works of" first, then check this out and you will be so delighted that you did.