Can't argue with Andrei's list; you could probably even pare it down to
Sun Ship (by far my favorite) and Giant Steps (pinnacle of his "in"
material). _Blue Train_ is also really great, but more of an anomaly due
its hard boppish feel.
I personally think that Sun Ship is great precisely because of its
transitional nature- he can fall back quite naturally on
Jones/Garrison/Tyner, in a way that he couldn't depend on his future
quintet (+/-). Contemporaneous recordings of The Quartet's swan song in
the summer of '65 are also amazing, including the great 2LPs of Coltrane
Live in Paris (their Mingus at Antibes, featuring Jimmy Garrison's most
brilliant recorded solo).
The first _Village Vanguard_ set (collected in a nice, compact 4CD box,
unlike the heinous Urban Outfitters nightmare classic quartet box that
followed) is also transitional and at times brilliant. Certainly, the
presence of Eric Dolphy makes it a must for any fan of the early 60s jazz
vanguard- remember, Cecil and Ornette would be hard-pressed to come up
with anything remotely as powerful at the time.
_Interstellar Space_ was also marking a change in Trane's tide; it was
basically his last album (subsequent material has been reissued in the
past decade) and were duets with Rashied Ali. Gone was the overtly
transcendent ecstatic vibe (c.f. Om and Ascension possibly the most
notorious recordings- this era is not included in Andrei's list probably
because they just simply were not as good as his previous peaks; if I had
to pick one of 'em for inclusion, it'd probably be _Live in Seattle_)-
this is one serious, inwardly-bound improv record, whose significance (and
relevance) is most likely still under-estimated.
I never did get whipped into a frenzy by a Love Supreme (the only one of
his Impulse records to find a spot in the hearts of AOR fans worldwide).
-rob