John Coltrane released “more sig­nif­i­cant works” than his 1960 “My Favorite Things,” says Robin Wash­ing­ton in a PRX doc­u­men­tary on the clas­sic rework­ing of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broad­way hit. “A Love Supreme” is often cit­ed as the zenith of the saxophonist’s career. “But if you tried to explain that song to an aver­age lis­ten­er, you would lose them. [“My Favorite Things”] is a defin­i­tive work that every­one knows, and any­one can lis­ten to, and the fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry of its evo­lu­tion is some­thing every­one can share and enjoy.” The song is acces­si­ble, a com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful hit, and it is also an exper­i­men­tal mas­ter­piece.

Indeed, “My Favorite Things” may be the per­fect intro­duc­tion to Coltrane’s exper­i­men­tal­ism. After the dizzy­ing chord changes of 1959’s “Giant Steps,” this 14-minute, two-chord excur­sion pat­terned on the ragas of Ravi Shankar announced Coltrane’s move into the modal forms he refined until his death in 1967, as well as his embrace of the sopra­no sax­o­phone and his new quar­tet. It became “Coltrane’s most request­ed tune,” says Ed Wheel­er in The World Accord­ing to John Coltrane, “and a bridge to a broad pub­lic audi­ence.”