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“This is one of the great gifts that Coltrane gave us — he gave us a key to the cosmos in this recording,” says John McLaughlin.
(Photo: Bob Thiele)In his original liner notes to A Love Supreme, John Coltrane wrote: “Yes, it is true — ‘seek and ye shall find.’” What he was seeking was God. This important album, a manifestation of the spiritual search that Coltrane was on at the time, was his prayer giving thanks for ultimately finding a path to the almighty.
“During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life,” Coltrane continued in the notes. “At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music. I feel this has been granted through His grace. This album is a humble offering to Him. An attempt to say ‘THANK YOU GOD’ through our work, even as we do in our hearts and with our tongues. May He help and strengthen all men in every good endeavor. ALL PRAISE TO GOD.”
Those words and more, along with a lengthy poem, are posted on the inside gatefold to A Love Supreme, which was released on the Impulse! label 60 years ago, in January 1965. They passionately convey Coltrane’s spiritual conviction that fueled this profoundly impactful music, which the late Michael Cuscuna called “one of the most honest musical performances ever put to tape” in a 1995 reissue that he produced.
Recorded in just one evening session between 7 p.m. and midnight on Dec. 9, 1964, at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey — there was no written music prepared for the session and no spoken directions from the leader — the quartet of Coltrane, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones collectively carved out the 33-minute, four-part suite by improvising together.
Long regarded as being at the apex of Coltrane’s massive oeuvre as well as among his best-selling albums (over one million copies to date), A Love Supreme received a five-star review in the April 8, 1965, issue of DownBeat. “This record is thoroughly a work of art,” wrote Don DeMicheal. “This is a significant album, because Coltrane has brought together the promising but underdeveloped aspects of his previous work; has shorn, compressed, extended, and tamed them; and has emerged a greater artist for it.”
This powerful devotional work has also served as a fertile jumping-off point for countless explorations of its four separate themes: “Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance” and “Psalm.”
With a special 60th Anniversary Edition being pressed on diamond vinyl on Impulse! Records and a host of tributes planned throughout the year, DownBeat gathered thoughts from four significant figures: John McLaughlin (who recorded a version of “Acknowledgment” with Carlos Santana on their 1973 album, Love Devotion Surrender), Branford Marsalis (who recorded all four movements on 2002’s Footsteps Of Our Fathers and again for the 2004 DVD A Love Supreme: Live In Amsterdam), Jeff “Tain” Watts (who appeared on both Branford Marsalis Quartet releases, along with an earlier rendition for the 1994 Impulse! compilation album Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool) and Ravi Coltrane, who was born seven months after A Love Supreme was released and who recently tackled his father’s imposing work at the 21st Winter JazzFest in New York.
John McLaughlin
“When I first heard A Love Supreme I was 23 years old at that time and struggling with questions of existence that we all confront sooner or later. Some of us discard them or don’t bother to delve deeper, but that’s not my nature. I was asking big questions: What is the meaning of life? What is this word ‘god’? What is this spirit? It was then that Coltrane came along and single-handedly brought this dimension of spirituality into jazz … it was a pivotal experience to me. I did not feel the impact of the music immediately. In fact, I was confused listening to the recording. However, I began reading the back cover poem that John wrote as a complement to the recording, and this text is profoundly moving. It’s a very heartfelt and profound expression from the soul of John Coltrane. I knew that the music corresponded exactly to the text, but I could not get it at first. So I began listening, almost every day. Months went by without me getting it, but thankfully, after about nine or 10 months, I was sitting and listening to it and from one moment to the next, I was swept away by the music, and I understood completely what the music was in the context of the text on the back side of the album cover. It was a revelation to me and I can safely say it changed my life. It was so encouraging to me in both my musical and spiritual quests. A Love Supreme coincided with my search for meaning in life.
“By the time Carlos [Santana] and I were in the studio [in October 1972] to record the music for Love Devotion Surrender, we decided to open it with ‘Acknowledgement,’ which is like a Hindu mantra. It has the same content and the same eternal value. We really didn’t have a game plan or anything, it was just the natural order of things that this supremely simple piece of John Coltrane’s should be included on the recording.
“As to why does this recording continue to be so important after 60 years: It’s because it has the eternal values of life and eternal values of the universe in it. We can all relate to it as human beings, and this is one of the great gifts that Coltrane gave us — he gave us a key to the cosmos in this recording. A Love Supreme has been there from the beginning of the universe and will be there at the end of the universe. We just hop on and enjoy.”
Branford Marsalis
“I think A Love Supreme continues to resonate over time and connect with people because of how it feels. The emotional impact of the music is the thing that allows it to sustain itself over time. You know, there’s a reason that people keep buying Kind Of Blue, and it’s not necessarily because they love Miles Davis, because why then don’t they buy his other records? That record has a thing. And you can’t teach it in music school, you can’t explain it on a video. And with things that endure, it’s a combination of the sound of the music and the collective charisma of the people that are playing it. A Love Supreme is one of those records that has that thing.
“Technically, it’s one of the easiest pieces of music ever. The first movement is one chord, second movement’s a blues, third movement’s a blues, fourth movement’s one chord. But ironically, it’s way harder to play than more complex Coltrane tunes like ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘Countdown,’ which is why a million people will post their ‘Giant Steps’ practice videos online now and none of them ever play A Love Supreme. Because that music requires more than knowing the math of ‘Coltrane changes.’ You can’t harmony or intellect your way to the emotional conclusion that is required to make that thing work. You have to allow the power of that music to get inside you emotionally, and it stays with you.
“Getting to the point where we were at the Bimhuis performance was the culmination of a lot. I had to learn a lot in preparation for that. I had to just think about it and reassess what A Love Supreme was. And there was a breakthrough moment where I told the guys, ‘We’ve been spending too much time trying to play like them and not enough time trying to sound like them. And once I got to that place with A Love Supreme, I realized that the heat is more important than the data. So we can play whatever the fuck we want, but if we play with a certain level of intensity, then we will start to achieve sounding like they used to sound.”
Jeff “Tain” Watts
“We started playing it back when Kenny Kirkland was in the band. We did an engagement at the Village Vanguard, probably like 1991, before The Tonight Show. And by the weekend, Branford’s like, ‘Let’s play A Love Supreme.’ We didn’t talk about it or map out any progressions or anything like that, we just played it. And I didn’t think anything about it. It was a no-pressure kind of thing and it ended up being loose and fun. We were just capturing the vibe and stretching on solos. Then during The Tonight Show, maybe 1994, we did a version of it for a benefit compilation record Impulse! put out [Red Hot + Cool, which addressed the AIDS epidemic].
“By the time we got around to recording it for Footsteps Of Our Fathers, Joey Calderazzo was in the band. Now, I know that A Love Supreme is this heavy, magical thing, but I remember feeling at the time that Branford shouldn’t even be covering it. I’m like, ‘Why doesn’t he write his own thing about how he feels about the universe or the creator or whatever? I mean, that’s how Trane felt. How do you feel, Branford?’ But then we did it, and I felt like he got to something that I hadn’t heard from him before.”
Ravi Coltrane
“Early on, the only time I would play any of that music from A Love Supreme was with my mother [Alice Coltrane], usually at her request. For me, it felt like the most appropriate time to play that music. Because it is sacred music, and just coming to it for shits and giggles had always felt inappropriate. One needed to approach that music from the most serious perspective. I remember working with Elvin in 1991 at a workshop he was doing for young musicians in San Francisco, and at some point he engaged them in a session. And the tunes they were playing were simple tunes, blues and things like that. And at one point, one of the young guys, a tenor player, started quoting from A Love Supreme, like he wanted to jam on that. Elvin just put his hand up very gently and just said, ‘No.’ It was clear that there was a time and place for that music, and that certainly was not the right time or the place. That phase in my father’s band was so important and so meaningful for Elvin, and it still resonated with him throughout his whole life. So he never took any of that music lightly. So if he didn’t, I certainly can’t, and the rest of us shouldn’t, either.
“I was still in school when I first played that music with my mother in public (at the 1987 Jazz Jamboree in Poland). I had always appreciated jazz music but I wasn’t really listening that intently when I was younger. I was playing the clarinet in the marching band, but jazz hadn’t entered my life yet in any kind of meaningful way. The Impulse! records that were a part of my father’s musical journey, those were the first records I heard. It was more of the earlier things like Live At The Village Vanguard and Africa Brass that were in the house, so you’re kind of growing up with it.
“Music started to speak to me a little bit differently when I was about 18 or 19. This was also after I lost an older brother, John Jr. I felt there was a void in my life and my father’s music filled it in a way that was unexpected, was not planned. It was just, suddenly I could hear it. And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.
“I’ve played this music various times over the years. It’s an honor to play that music, and everyone involved has recognized the level of seriousness of the piece itself, especially when we get to ‘Psalm.’ Because sometimes you can treat the other pieces just like tunes, but ‘Psalm’ is a sermon. And you really have to kind of be emotionally ready for that. Once you hear it, then you start to feel it and it’s like, ‘Wow!’ It gives you chills, man. And every time we’re on stage playing that music, we can feel that connection. When you’re with musicians that you trust and love, it comes out in the music. It becomes less daunting and more of like, ‘We’re on this journey together.’ And it’s quite beautiful.
“The idea in playing A Love Supreme isn’t to try to recreate the record or try to emulate the John Coltrane Quartet. That’s never the intention when we get up on stage. Those guys, their work and their music is like a beacon that shines on the rest of us. And hopefully it will illuminate our own sense of self, our own sense of what our musical journey is. So, it’s a beautiful light to bask in. And it’s a virtuous thing to to be able to play this music.” DB
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
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