My Favorite Things by John Coltrane

My Favorite Things, which John Coltrane put out on Atlantic Records in March 1961, is the record where he first picked up the soprano saxophone, and the sound of that slender horn keening and spiraling around the title tune is enough to knock the walls of your head down. This is a man who helped pioneer playing on modes, and you can hear him stretching the melody out into a long, hypnotic trance, circling back and pushing further each time.

It's jazz, strictly speaking, but it reached well past the jazz crowd: an edited cut of the title track became a radio hit that year, and the album turned into a major commercial success.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.