The amazement begins when you open up the CD jewel case. There is a reproduction of the playbill for a concert:

Friday Evening November 29

8:30PM and Midnight

At Carnegie Hall for the Morningside Community Center

Thanksgiving Jazz

Miss Billie Holliday

Dizzy Gillespie with orchestra with Austin Cromer

Special Attraction: Ray Charles

Chet Baker with Zoot Sims Quartet

Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane

Introducing in Concert the brilliant Sonny Rollins

The tickets were only $2, $3, $3.50, and $3.95 and were tax exempt because the concert was a benefit for charity!

In 1957, the great Johnny Coltrane was fired from the Miles Davis quintet because of his substance abuse problems. In response to that, he fought and managed to win his way free from the twin demons of alcohol and heroin addiction. He was given another chance by the great jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. In the few months that he worked in Monk's quartet during that year, Coltrane had to learn how to play Monk's challenging music with Monk. Coltrane learned how to fly via the power and passion of his own music, and through his new-found love for God. It was to be the turning point of both his life and his music.

The music itself was long considered to be lost -- until earlier this year when someone found the tape of a charity concert where Monk and Coltrane performed in a quartet together in an unmarked box at the Library of Congress. It was immediately recognized for being a priceless treasure, and the next few months it was prepared for release as a CD.

The result is breathtaking. Monk, playing on the concert grand at Carnegie Hall, gave a performance filled with fire and joy. He and Coltrane traded off solos and pushed each other into the stratosphere. And in Coltrane, you hear a man who has found his way to freedom - a man who has learnt that no matter how much you might have previously messed up your life -- you can still come back from any sort of hell and learn how to soar across the sky to the music of the angels.

The sheer joy and energy and exuberance of this music made me cry the first time I listened to it this afternoon.

Believe any and all hype you might hear from your jazz fan friends. This is the real deal. This is an immediate classic.