Interstellar Space is a studio album by American jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. It was recorded in 1967, the year of his death, and released by Impulse! Records in September 1974. Piano and bass were becoming residual by the last days of Coltrane's quartet; you braced yourself for the moment he abandoned any pretext of an underlying harmony and went mano a mano with Elvin Jones. These duets with Rashied Ali start there—and the spare compositional guidelines only up the intensity. Interstellar Space consists of an extended duet suite in four parts with the drummer Rashied Ali, and was recorded at the Van Gelder Studio on February 22, 1967, the week after the session that produced Stellar Regions. As a result, the melodies often overlap; "Venus" has the same melody as the title track of the previous LP, "Mars" quotes the melody of what became known as "Iris", and many note choices and runs are similar. At the beginning of most of the songs, Coltrane plays chime-like bells, while Ali s.. …