John Coltrane: A Love Supreme (Deluxe Edition) : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

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. But unlike many long-forgotten conceptual jazz titles of the period, A Love Supreme endures, thanks to Coltrane's wriggling lines and devout, spine-chilling incantations, and the ways his creative trio urged him on.

A Love Supreme has long been overdue for a sonic upgrade -- previous CD versions have been plagued with drop-outs and assorted glitches -- and this two-disc package serves the masterwork well. The first disc offers the original album, elegantly remastered by original recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder. The second disc is the collector's bonanza: It offers two new alternate studio tracks that were recorded during the Love Supreme sessions as well as the only known concert of the full suite, from a festival in France. Though not a flawless performance, this oft-bootlegged live set catches Coltrane's group balancing roiling, avant-garde chaos against earnest, beseeching melodies -- striving for an ecstasy, and spiritual communion, that most musicians never even dared to dream about.