I know I’ve been circling around the same field for the last few posts, but one of the better albums that’s assisting me on this vacation is Steve Kuhn’s latest ECM offering Mostly Coltrane. The connection tying this to the previous NYC jazz posts is his regular sidekick Joey Baron who is a pillar of the Masada clique and Joe Lovano on tenor who tries to fill Coltrane’s obviously unfillable shoes with quite a success.

Brooklyn born Kuhn is now effectively in his 70’s and unbeknowst to many (including me), he was Coltrane’s first pianist before the legendary McCoy Tyner who’s also 71 years old now. He has released a string of albums on ECM in the late seventies but for two decades his only ECM offering was 95’s Remembering Tomorrow. His return album “Mostly Coltrane” is a tribute to John Coltrane and might be seen as a “what if/alternative history” take where Kuhn returns to pieces he used to play with Coltrane as well as newer – even posthumously released – material. I don’t want to rate this one against Coltrane versions since they are remarkably different so I leave it to jazz critics, but it’s safe to say a tribute like this is much appreciated.