Termini promised him that between the Five Spot and the Jazz Gallery, he could guarantee Coltrane at least ten weeks’ work a year and match what Miles was paying him. And so, while on a European tour with Davis that spring, the saxophonist gave his notice—with his blessing, Miles later said—and opened at the Jazz Gallery on Tuesday, May 3, 1960, with Steve Kuhn on piano, Coltrane’s old Philadelphia friend Steve Davis on bass, and Pete La Roca on drums. It was an excellent rhythm section, and Coltrane’s name by itself was enough to draw crowds, but the band he opened with wasn’t the band he truly wanted.
The players Coltrane really wanted all happened to be otherwise engaged. McCoy Tyner, not yet twenty-one but Trane’s close friend and musical confident since 1957, was touring with the Jazztet, a group co-led by Art Farmer and Benny Golson. (The band had played opposite Ornette Coleman at his Five Spot opening in November.) The bassist Art Davis was traveling with Dizzy Gillespie. And the great Elvin Jones, recently arrested for possession of heroin, was temporarily residing at Rikers Island.
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