John Coltrane - What Child Is This? (Greensleeves) Live @ Village Vanguard (Impulse Records 1961)

With Elvin Jones on drums, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and McCoy Tyner on piano, “What Child Is This?“ is a popular Christmas carol written in 1865. At the age of twenty-nine, English writer William Chatterton Dix was struck with a sudden near-fatal illness and confined to bedrest for several months, during which he went into a deep depression. Yet out of his near-death experience, Dix wrote many hymns, including “What Child is This?“, later set to the traditional English tune “Greensleeves.“ This song was recorded during a specific and very celebrated phase in Coltrane’s career, when things were really gelling with his band, many of whom believe was the greatest collection of musicians in jazz over a long-term recording period between 1961 and 1965. This period corresponded with Coltrane’s work on the Impulse! label, with whom he’d stay until his untimely death from liver cancer in 1967. In each case, that melancholic quality is coupled perfectly with Coltrane’s signature sound; that elemental turbulence that lay at the centre of everything he laid down. This was in the years before he embraced “the New Thing“, with that new thing being avante garde; double quartets, and dual saxophone assaults with Pharaoh Sanders. This would be a phase in Coltrane’s approach that broke the tension a bit between lyrical playing and the out and out effusion of that sonic darkness which had been seething under the surface in the Atlantic and early Impulse! period. John’s accompanied by Elvin Jones on drums, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and McCoy Tyner on piano. What child is this? Who meant to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping Who angels greet with anthem sweet While shepherds watch our keeping This, this is Christ, the King Whom shepherds guard and angels sing Haste, haste to bring Him laud The babe, the Son of Mary So bring him incense, gold and myrrh Come peasant King to own him The King of kings, salvation brings Let loving hearts enthrone Him This, this is Christ, the King Whom shepherds guard and angels sing Haste, haste to bring Him laud The babe, the Son of Mary Nails fierce shall pierce him through The cross be borne for me, for you Hail, hail, the word made flesh Obeyed the Son of Mary This, this is Christ, the King Whom shepherds guard and angels sing Haste, haste to bring Him laud The babe, the Son of Mary Praise Him, Son of joy Joy to the risen Lord Praise Him, Son of joy Joy to the risen Lord This, this is Christ the king Whom shepherds guard and angels sing Haste, haste to bring Him laud The babe, the Son of Mary