For many a jazz fan John Coltrane's A Love Supreme is their personal desert island pick, the one recording they would not hesitate to live their days out listening to. Recorded on December 9, 1964, the session has endured as a document of the saxophonist's faith, as it was the proclamation of his rebirth from the jazz life of alcohol and substance abuse.
A rare private recording of John Coltrane playing his iconic work A Love Supreme is getting released for the first time. A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle arrives October 8 (via Impulse!/UMe). The set was captured by saxophonist and educator Joe Brazil in 1965 on the final night of Coltrane’s weeklong stint at the Penthouse in Seattle. The lineup featured legendary musicians Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison, and more.
Ranked #47 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time". A LOVE SUPREME is the essential example of the genius of John Coltrane. In what has become the apotheosis of jazz music, this eminently accessible work bridges the gap between music and spirituality, between art and life. With the ultimate incarnation of the jazz quartet, Coltrane brings together all of his turbulent elements into a cohesive paean to spirituality, one which is fully appreciable by the uninitiated.
John Coltrane's A Love Supreme is one of the most compelling, spiritual testimonies in the history of jazz. The four-part suite, originally issued in 1965, can't be divorced from its cultural moment – based on the cadences of Bible psalms and the tenor saxman's own free verse, the album reflects the jazz world's growing embrace of Eastern ideas as well as the tumult of the American black-consciousness movement. ~ Rolling Stone Magazine
For Marsalis Music's second DVD release, label founder Branford Marsalis and his quartet have been captured in a complete performance of John Coltrane's 1964 masterpiece A Love Supreme. This legendary suite, which tenor saxophonist Marsalis included on his label's premier release, Footsteps of Our Fathers, was performed at Amsterdam's Bimhuis during a European tour in March 2003. “We felt that we were pretty much done with A Love Supreme when we went to Europe, but my manager wasn't done with it,” Marsalis recalls wryly. “After hearing us perform the suite at the Bottom Line, she insisted that we had to film it so she approached Pierre about the project and he agreed.”