Ascension (or: a jazz thread)

[Jyqm]

I realize this thread might have exceedingly narrow appeal, but what the hell. Coltrane fans, if there are any out there, do you own Ascension, or have you heard it? What do you think about it?

I just listened to it (Edition II) for the first time in quite a few years, and it was a pretty positive experience. Partly because I think I have a pretty high tolerance for dissonance, depending on the circumstances. Ascension is certainly not a perfect piece/album by any means, but as an exercise in discovering the true roots of free improvisation and its ability to create music, I think it's amazingly successful. This is the "a thousand monkeys banging away at a thousand typewriters for thousand years" (and it certainly feels that long to some people) of jazz albums. It's a glorious noise, often uncomfortable and difficult to listen to, but every now then there emerges that snippet of Shakespeare and it's absolutely beautiful.

Or maybe I'm full of **** and the whole thing is just a big piece of pretentious avant-garde crap. At any rate, I'm now listening to Coltrane as kind of a cool-down.

So. Anybody else have any thoughts about Ascension?

Or, to give this thread a little wider scope: What's your favorite jazz album? Or who's your favorite jazz artist?* Whatever you want to write about; this place could use a good jazz thread.

*The "and why?" is implied in both of those questions. If you pollute my thread with just a list of names and titles that I could go look up on Amazon.com, I will hunt you down and destroy you.