A Love Supreme is an album by American jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. He recorded it in one session on December 9, 1964, at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, leading a quartet featuring pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones.
A Love Supreme was released by Impulse! Records in January 1965. It was one of Coltrane’s bestselling albums and one of his most critically acclaimed. It is widely considered his masterpiece, as well as one of the greatest albums of all time.
A Love Supreme is a through-composed suite with four parts: “Acknowledgement” (which includes the oral chant that gives the album its name), “Resolution”, “Pursuance”, and “Psalm”. Coltrane plays tenor saxophone on all parts. One critic has written that the album was intended to represent a struggle for purity, an expression of gratitude, and an acknowledgement that the musician’s talent comes from a higher power. Coltrane’s home in Dix Hills, Long Island, may have inspired the album. Another influence may have been Ahmadiyya Islam.
The album begins with the bang of a gong (tam-tam) and cymbal washes on the first track, “Acknowledgement”. Jimmy Garrison enters on double bass with the four-note motif that lays the foundation of the movement. Coltrane begins a solo. He plays variations on the motif until he repeats the four notes thirty-six times. The motif then becomes the titular vocal chant “A Love Supreme”, sung by Coltrane accompanying himself through overdubs nineteen times. According to Rolling Stone, this movement’s four-note theme is “the humble foundation of the suite”.
In the fourth and final movement, “Psalm”, Coltrane performs what he calls a “musical narration”. Lewis Porter calls it a “wordless recitation”. The devotional is included in the liner notes. Coltrane “plays” the words of the poem on saxophone but doesn’t speak them. Some scholars have suggested that this performance is an homage to the sermons of African-American preachers. The poem (and, in his own way, Coltrane’s solo) ends with the cry, “Elation. Elegance. Exaltation. All from God. Thank you God. Amen.”
A Love Supreme was categorized by Rockdelux as modal jazz, avant-garde jazz, free jazz, hard bop, and post-bop.read more.
Artists (alternate takes)
Album Data
Released: January 1965
Recorded: 12/9/64
Record Label: Impulse! Records
Location Recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey
Producer: Bob Thiele
Album Length: 33 min / 02 sec
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