AMG Review of Retrospective: Impulse

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

Each album John Coltrane released on Impulse Records had a specific mood and tone; often, they were sequenced in a specific order to maximize the emotional impact of the music. Consequently, a compilation isn't the best way to hear these records, and Retrospective: Impulse proves that. There's certainly a lot of wonderful, timeless music on this collection, from "Naima" to "Alabama," but this disc isn't the way to appreciate it, since its sequencing doesn't have the same impact or context as the original albums. Some casual fans or curious listeners might use this as an introduction, and it isn't necessarily bad, since it does have an abundence of good music. However, it's not as good an introduction to the Impulse records as the original records themselves.