What is a Love Supreme?
Music elucidates a great cosmic mystery: what is experience? Or perhaps Coltrane would say: what is love? One wonders how musicians are able synthesize such complex and subtle emotions, and because of that ability Coltrane seems to have answers to these questions. A Love Supreme for me and countless others is a special album. The feelings conveyed cut to the very core of what it means to be a human. This album reaches deep into the heart of the listener making them one with the pain inherent in existence. Coltrane’s ability to connect directly with the infinite well spring brings an almost indescribable energy to his music and this album is one of the best examples of this. It is truly awesome.
The pure revelry of this album is felt on every track and is introduced beautifully with Acceptance, the opening track. It begins with a vamp that foreshadows the title of the album later sung/spoken by a dozen overdubbed John Coltranes. The leads from Coltrane in this song sound like a snake coiling and preparing to strike. The frantic energy not quite built yet bubbles just under the surface.
The second track, Resolution, holds a special place in my heart. The power of the melody has had a large impact on me over the years. The notes somehow communicate the concept: resolution. Free will is possible, but it’s very hard. Achieving free will is the great struggle for humanity as individuals and as a group struggling against the void. It is during great adversity where we find within ourselves the opportunity to leave the ceaseless wheel, to escape our destiny and to do what we will with ourselves. This simply requires every single bit of resolve that you have. It is a titanic effort to pull oneself from the tyranny of fate, which Coltrane achieved and encapsulated in this song.
The third track, Pursuance, follows a pattern with Coltranes arrangement style from this era. The penultimate track is, for a few albums at least, are driving, up-tempo motivic melodies. This serves to reinforce the messaging of this album. The melodic movement is searching, scrubbing, questing… pursuing. It’s a pursuit for the sake of pursuit, however. It’s a recognition of the totality of the pursuit. The resolution we came to in the previous track was to struggle endlessly. Whereas in the previous track we resolve to pursue, in this track we actually pursue. For Coltrane the pursuit, which is never ending, is the pursuit of God, of a Love Supreme.
The final track is a prayer, a love poem giving thanks to God. In this track the accompanying lyrics proclaim the beauty of God’s creation, declaring it “so beautiful” and repeating “Thank you, God”. This is a revelation that Coltrane experienced during the agony of heroin withdrawal. In this non-living/non-dead dead state he found the desperate desire to live and was overcome with gratitude that God allowed him to survive. I feel that desperation in his playing. It resonates through every nerve. It’s the best example of a magic spell that I can think of. If you play this song with your instrument, you will receive favor from God. Do with it what you will…
For me Coltrane is the best example of what jazz can be, and A Love Supreme is some of Coltrane at his best. It is quite singular in terms of genre for the era, but is not without, then, popular elements. Like those of free jazz with his famous “sheets of sound” but also some of the compositional elements of modal, like sticking to a two-chord vamp for a while. For me the technical discussion of his music is less interesting than the metaphysical implications of such an artist/ work. Coltrane did have a direct connection to the great wellspring. He shows us where we all come from. This performance shows his deep understanding. He is wild and exciting and dangerous and resolute. In California there is a church dedicated to him as a saint. They believe that John was connected to the great creator directly, and if there was ever evidence for that, this album and for me is that evidence.
-Weldon