With his first utterances on this record, John Coltrane takes us straight into his interior world of passionate intensity. There are all the familiar trademarks – the oboe-like tone, the long lines of obsessed private rhetoric, the huge involved doodles.
His own words, which provide almost the whole of the sleeve-note, are unique – a humble religious dedication of this work and all his output. It is this which provides a key to Coltrane’s own approach to his music and to the essential seriousness which has puzzled many people.
Nearly the whole of this disc is taken up by Coltrane’s own work – there are relatively short passages by McCoy Tyner and brief interpolations by bass and drums – backed throughout by a very active accompaniment from the trio, who are obviously working in close sympathy with him.
There are many examples, both in older simpler jazz and in the soul-laden performances of recent years, of ‘preaching’ by jazz soloists. The final track of this record is perhaps the supreme example of such an impassioned outpouring, but for all its passion it is completely under control, full of fire and yet intensely stable.
Never forbidding, at no point ugly as some of his work has been in the past, this is a record which needs an open mind and plenty of time to listen. Not for the faint-hearted, this work makes sense of some comparatively recent gropings by this extremely important musician – whose effect on others becomes more apparent.
Discography
Acknowledgement; Resolution (15 min) – Pursuance; Psalm (17 min)
John Coltrane (ten); McCoy Tyner (p); Jimmy Garrison (bs); Elvin Jones (d). 9/12/64.
(H.M.V. CSD 1605 12inLP 32s.)
And 10 years later, in JJ 07/75, Mark Gardner still wasn’t a fan:
John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
Though sounding today considerably less revolutionary than when I first reviewed this collection about 10 years ago, A Love Supreme still remains for this writer a strangely monotonous record. By this stage the Coltrane quartet had evolved its own peculiar formula – the barrage from Jones, the rummagings of Garrison, Tyner’s predictable chord voicings and atop it all the interminable drone and choked cries of Coltrane (a man in pain).
Coltrane’s tenor tone was plain ugly by now and his work has a tortured, struggling quality that seems to be a curious tribute to the Almighty (as this record complete with Coltrane’s poem and notes is intended).
There are neat solos by Tyner on Resolution and Pursuance but the leader’s playing leaves me unmoved and bored. The idea that John Coltrane was a genius is certainly dispelled by this LP, though, let me hasten to add, some listeners regard the set as the saxophonist’s most profound statement. An influence Coltrane certainly was, and still is, but did he really advance the jazz cause? (Mark Gardner)
Discography
Part 1: Acknowledgement; Part 2: Resolution (15 min) – Part 3: Pursuance; Part 4: Psalm (17½ min)
John Coltrane (ten); McCoy Tyner (pno); Jimmy Garrison (bs); Elvin Jones (dm). NYC. 9/12/64.
(Impulse IMPL 8001 £2.55)
