I've been listening to Coltrane's A Love Supreme recently. It's an album that took awhile to sink in but wow, did it sink in. I think the man may possibly be the only person who could single-handedly restore my faith in spirituality.

Compared to his later work, A Love Supreme seems tame but to dismiss it as emotionally lightweight is to miss the more subtle intensity that Coltrane displays : throughout the four-part suite the depth of his playing is breathtaking in its sustained power. Many critics have said that there is not a wasted note in the suite. Coltrane meant every note he played ; the fact that this album proved less of a skronk-fest than later attempts doesn't detract from his emotional sincerity - it just proves a different vehicle.

While Coltrane's later work tended to alienate his audience (and some of his band members) the members of his quartet seem to understand his approach perfectly on A Love Supreme. In particular, Elvin Jones' drumming on Resolution is almost inhumanly intense - straddling the sheets of percussive noise characteristic of the later free jazz drummers like Rashied Ali and the refined swing of bebop drummers, with hints of the elastic quality of the Bill Evans piano trio. Elvin Jones later left the quartet, at odds with Coltrane's musical direction - it is easy here to notice the tension between the earlier swing-based beat and the later pulse-based drumming. The album is quite possibly the pinnacle of Jones' and Coltrane's collaboration - as far as Jones was willing to go in terms of the avant-garde, and Coltrane's departure point.

I originally felt that the fourth part of the suite, Psalm, was a bit ponderous, the timpani a rather ostentatious addition - again, missing the point totally. Its slowness lends it weight that is sometimes lost on a casual listening. Psalm is almost painful to listen to, as if every phrase were purging you of some long-forgotten sin. I think that's what Coltrane's intent was. The suite is a magnificent monument to faith.

adam