A Love Supreme
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| A Love Supreme | |||||
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| Studio album by John Coltrane | |||||
| Released | 1965 | ||||
| Recorded | December 9, 1964 | ||||
| Genre | Jazz, Modal Jazz | ||||
| Length | 33:02 | ||||
| Label | Impulse! | ||||
| Producer | Bob Thiele | ||||
| Professional reviews | |||||
| John Coltrane chronology | |||||
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A Love Supreme is a jazz album released by John Coltrane's quartet in 1965. It is generally considered to be among Coltrane's greatest works, as it coalesced the hard bop sensibilities of his early career with the free jazz style he adopted later in his life.
Contents |
[edit] Recording
The quartet recorded the album in one session on December 9, 1964 at the Van Gelder studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The album is a four-part suite, broken up into tracks: "Acknowledgement" (which contains the famous mantra that gave the suite its name), "Resolution", "Pursuance", and "Psalm". It is intended to be a spiritual album, broadly representative of a personal struggle for purity. The final track corresponds to the wording of a devotional poem Coltrane included in the liner notes.
Coltrane's home in in the Dix Hills neighborhood of Huntington, New York has been suggested as the site of inspiration for A Love Supreme. [1]
[edit] Reception and influence
A Love Supreme is usually listed amongst the greatest jazz albums of all time.[2][3][4][5][6].
The manuscript for the album is one of the National Museum of American History's "Treasures of American History," part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.[7].
The elements of harmonic freedom heard on this album indicated the changes to come in Coltrane's music. Guitarist Carlos Santana credits the album as one of his greatest early influences.[8]
[edit] Other performances
An alternative version of "Acknowledgement" was recorded the next day on December 10. This version, which included tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp and bassist Art Davis, did not feature Coltrane chanting “a love supreme,” one reason he chose to issue the quartet version. (Porter, 249)
The only known live performance of the Love Supreme suite, from a July 26, 1965 performance at the Festival Mondial du Jazz Antibes, Juan-les-Pins, France, was also remastered and released in a 2002 2-CD set by Impulse! Records with the original album and additional studio outtakes. This performance was considerably more dissonant than the studio version, and features an extended drum solo preceding “Pursuance’s” bass solo.
[edit] Cover versions
Will Downing released an R&B cover version of the main theme, with the co-operation of John's widow Alice Coltrane, which reached number fourteen in the UK singles chart in 1988.
The suite also forms four tracks on the 2002 Branford Marsalis Quartet album entitled Footsteps of our Fathers, and another Marsalis version is on a DVD "A Love Supreme Live in Amsterdam".
[edit] Track listing
- Part 1: "Acknowledgement" – 7:47
- Part 2: "Resolution" – 7:22
- Part 3: "Pursuance" - 10:45
- Part 4: "Psalm" – 7:08
[edit] 2002 Deluxe edition
[edit] Disc 1
- Part 1: "Acknowledgement" – 7:42
- Part 2: "Resolution" – 7:19
- Part 3: "Pursuance" - 10:42
- Part 4: "Psalm" – 7:02
[edit] Disc 2
- Introduction by Andre Francis – 1:13
- Part 1: "Acknowledgement" [Live] – 6:11
- Part 2: "Resolution" [Live] – 11:36
- Part 3: "Pursuance" [Live] – 21:30
- Part 4: "Psalm" [Live] – 8:49
- Part 2: "Resolution" [Alternate take] –7:24
- Part 2: "Resolution" [Breakdown] – 2:13
- Part 1: "Acknowledgement" [Alternate take] – 9:09
- Part 1: "Acknowledgement" [Alternate take] – 9:22
[edit] Personnel
- John Coltrane – tenor saxophone, bandleader
- McCoy Tyner – piano
- Jimmy Garrison – bass
- Elvin Jones – drums
- Archie Shepp – tenor saxophone (tracks 12 & 13 only)
- Art Davis – bass (tracks 12 & 13 only)
- Bob Thiele – production
- Michael Cuscuna – reissue production
[edit] See also
- The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
- Variations on A Love Supreme.
- Man in the Air – album by jazz vocalist Kurt Elling which adds lyrics to "Resolution."
- Love Devotion Surrender – album by Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin containing a jazz-rock tribute to the suite.
- A Love Supreme: The Legacy Of John Coltrane - album by the Turtle Island String Quartet which received the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album
[edit] Notes
- ^ Kahn 2002
- ^ Channel4 - 100 Greatest Albums
- ^ http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time Top Albums of All-time list
- ^ Q magazine (4/99, p.129) - Included in Q's list of "The Best Jazz Albums of All Time."
- ^ Vibe magazine (12/99, p.160) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century.
- ^ NME magazine (10/2/93, p.29) - Ranked #36 in NME's list of the `Greatest Albums Of All Time.'
- ^ A Love Supreme. National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved on 2008-05-28.
- ^ Carlos Santana Sees The Light
[edit] References
- Kahn, Ashley [2002] (2003). A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album, Elvin Jones, Penguin Books. ISBN 0142003522.
- Porter, Lewis (1999). John Coltrane: His Life and Music. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 047208643X.
[edit] Further reading
- Porter, Lewis (1985). "John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme: Jazz Improvisation as Composition". Journal of the American Musicological Society 38: 593–621. University of California Press.
