John Coltrane was a friggin' genius

No, it is easy to assume that.

You have to remember that Coltrane recorded for 3 different labels in his career in Prestige, Atlantic, and Impulse!

Now, his recordings on Prestige are pretty much where he was a sideguy but after he became famous, these recordings were re-packaged with him as "the leader". "Soultrane" is, I think, one of the few Prestige recordings in which he is actually a "leader" of the session.

When he went to Atlantic, "Giant Steps" was his first true album for that label. JC was still trying to figure out his place in music and he was still fooling around with the right people for his quartet. (Jeff or anyone else who knows more about this, feel free to interject if I am stating this incorrectly) Paul Chambers, who in my opinion, is the greatest jazz bassist ever plays on Giant Steps as does Flanagan and Kelly plus Art Taylor and Jimmy Cobb handled drums. NONE of those guys would be members of the classic Coltrane quartet. Coltrane did several more albums for Atlantic still trying to find that right match and released some great albums including "Coltrane's Sound" and "My Favorite Things". By now, he had settled on McCoy Tyner to play piano and Elvin Jones to play drums but he was using Steve Davis to play bass. It wouldn't be until he would start recording for his 3rd and final label in Impulse! that he would replace Davis with Jimmy Garrison on bass.

Then of course, he became enamored with a young tenor named Pharaoh Sanders and that pretty much ended the classic quartet.

So, in my opinion (which could very well be wrong), Coltrane was still searching for his voice and it was easy to use people he was familiar with from working with Monk and Miles. It wasn't until he was a member of the Impulse! label that he was firmly convinced who should be supporting him in his journey to make incredible music.