By Loren Schoenberg, Conductor and Saxophonist These lists have been compiled with the newcomer to jazz in mind. We have shied away from compilations wherever possible, for the simple reason that you may very well wind up buying the complete albums that were excerpted in the compilations. Here you have a small but representative sampling of some of the very best music John Coltrane recorded in every period of his career, with as little duplication as possible. Acknowledgement [from a Love Supreme] Recorded December 9, 1964 (Courtesy Verve Music Group) Blue Train Blue Note Giant Steps Atlantic A Love Supreme Impulse Coltrane Impulse Live at Birdland Impulse Interstellar Space Impulse NPR's Basic Jazz Record Library: John Coltrane NPR's Murray Horwitz and jazz critic and poet AB Spellman recommend Trane's Blue Train (Blue Note). (Courtesy NPRJazz.org) NPR's Basic Jazz Record Library: Coltrane/Hartmann NPR's Murray Horwitz and jazz critic and poet AB Spellman recommend John Coltrane and Johnny Hartmann (Impulse). (Courtesy NPRJazz.org)