John Coltrane’s Evenings at the Village Gate with Eric Dolphy makes a splash across Billboard’s album chart (dated July 29). The recently rediscovered set – recorded in 1961 – bows at No. 8 on Top Album Sales, No. 1 on Jazz Albums, No. 1 on Traditional Jazz Albums, No. 4 on Tastemaker Albums, No. 7 on Top Current Album Sales and No. 10 on Vinyl Albums. It also launches at No. 156 on the overall Billboard 200 chart.
Evenings is jazz legend Coltrane’s eighth No. 1 on both Jazz Albums and Traditional Jazz Albums, and the first leader for Dolphy. Coltrane and Dolphy died in 1967 and 1964, respectively.
The 80-minute album of previously unreleased music was released by Impulse!/UMe and showcases performances by the quintet of Coltrane, Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones recorded in the summer of 1961 at New York’s Village Gate club.
According to Impulse!, the recordings were originally made as a test of the Village Gate’s then-new sound system and discovered at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Further, it was apparently the second time the recordings were found in the Public Library’s archives, after they previously were found, and lost.
Evenings at the Village Gate sold nearly 9,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending July 20, according to Luminate. Of that sum, vinyl sales comprise just over 4,000.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Jazz Albums and Traditional Jazz Albums rank the week’s most popular overall jazz and traditional jazz albums, respectively, by equivalent album units. Top Current Album Sales lists the week’s best-selling current (not catalog, or older albums) albums by traditional album sales. Tastemaker Albums ranks the week’s top-selling albums at independent and small chain record stores. Vinyl Albums lists the week’s top-selling vinyl albums.
As for the rest of the top 10 on the new Top Album Sales chart, Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) retains the No. 1 slot for a second week (47,000; down 91%), Stray Kids’ chart-topping 5-STAR is steady at No. 2 (19,000; down 32%) and RM’s Indigo re-enters at No. 3 (14,000; up 1,772% after its vinyl release). Three former No. 1s from Swift follow, as Midnights falls 3-4 (12,000; down 29%), Folklore rises 6-5 (11,000; down 12%) and Lover bumps 7-6 (9,000; down 21%). Aespa’s chart-topping MY WORLD descends 4-7 (9,000; down 31%), Colter Wall’s Little Songs debuts at No. 9 (8,000) and ENHYPEN’s Dark Blood climbs 13-10 (8,000; up 2%).
In the week ending July 20, there were 1.753 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 17.8% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.428 million (down 17.4%) and digital albums comprised 325,000 (down 19.2%).
There were 572,000 CD albums sold in the week ending July 20 (down 18.8% week-over-week) and 846,000 vinyl albums sold (down 16.2%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 19.456 million (up 3.4% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 26.218 million (up 21.2%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 56.264 million (up 7.7% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 45.976 million (up 12.9%) and digital album sales total 10.288 million (down 10.7%).
