A Love Supreme
John Coltrane
1964
The interesting thing here—if we're really gonna just jump right into it, first week of 2024, a fresh slate of Blind Spots at our disposal, parceled out one by one each week in a random order, 50 more albums that I'm not familiar with but probably should be, here to explore each one and try to understand what makes it tick—is that A Love Supreme is both described as an apotheosis of jazz music, but also a really good album for a jazz beginner to check out.
I guess the latter makes sense. I spent some time in 2023 going through the hip hop classics, known as "classics" because they are well-known but also just really fucking good. It was helpful for me to learn the genre through the tried and true. I don't see why jazz would be any different. I don't know shit about jazz beyond any song that I fumbled my way through in eight years of "jazz band" at both La Salles, plus any random-ass jazz album we've covered on this blog already (a few in Record Club; that Miles Davis album in this column last year that now feels like an advanced course in jazz that I foolhardily attempted too soon). But I'm not a hater. I want to know. I just need some guidance.
Listening to A Love Supreme helps. I felt, and fell in, its grooves. In particular, there's that bass line that keeps coming back, occasionally underlined with vocals that repeat the album's title over and over like a chant, accenting the second and fourth syllables. This album is apparently Coltrane's attempt to find oneness with god. I don't know if he got there or if that matters, but I know that there was at least one listen I had with this thing where I personally felt one with the universe. Not a god I don't believe in, but just, like, I dunno, comfortable in my own skin and excited to be alive, something like that. I won't go into details because they are too personal even for the blog, and they'd be boring and trite to you anyway, and maybe it had more to do with external context than the internal mechanisms of the jazz album blasting into my ear, but still! I felt it, for a moment.
The easy part about listening to the "classics" through this column is that there are always some really nice write-ups elsewhere on the internet already that help guide, and feel essential because the person writing them is usually a huge fan already, and knowledgeable about what makes this good album good. I read the Pitchfork review of the release of the deluxe version of A Love Supreme, and while I have very little use for any thoughts about the bonus tracks and alternate takes, since I will most likely never choose to listen to them on purpose, I found the general thoughts about the album to be extremely helpful.
The piece was able to give at least a little context about what the fuck this even is, ya know? How it was a sort of late-in-life masterpiece for Coltrane. How A Love Supreme was a conscious attempt to find union between the wackadoo jazz batshittery and a palatable, understandable jazz for outsiders seeking to know. How Coltrane had very little public personality outside of jazz for the last few years in his life, and so all we know about him is through the music, which is fascinating and puts immense weight onto the songs. Even a casual mention about how he was "experimenting with atonality" was helpful to me; it was like, wait, so there can be purpose behind the skronk of jazz noise? Kinda makes you appreciate drawing a line between this album and the album in which his widow makes her own attempt at talking to god, and might even get there.
Look: I still don't know shit about jazz. I might never get there, as I can't foresee any serious attempts at jumping down that rabbit hole, at least any time soon. But I cannot for the life of me how anyone could totally forsake jazz in toto. Not when you hear that absolutely blistering midsection in "Part 3: Pursuance," for instance. I don't know if I hear god, but I hear something, and I like it.
I guess the latter makes sense. I spent some time in 2023 going through the hip hop classics, known as "classics" because they are well-known but also just really fucking good. It was helpful for me to learn the genre through the tried and true. I don't see why jazz would be any different. I don't know shit about jazz beyond any song that I fumbled my way through in eight years of "jazz band" at both La Salles, plus any random-ass jazz album we've covered on this blog already (a few in Record Club; that Miles Davis album in this column last year that now feels like an advanced course in jazz that I foolhardily attempted too soon). But I'm not a hater. I want to know. I just need some guidance.
Listening to A Love Supreme helps. I felt, and fell in, its grooves. In particular, there's that bass line that keeps coming back, occasionally underlined with vocals that repeat the album's title over and over like a chant, accenting the second and fourth syllables. This album is apparently Coltrane's attempt to find oneness with god. I don't know if he got there or if that matters, but I know that there was at least one listen I had with this thing where I personally felt one with the universe. Not a god I don't believe in, but just, like, I dunno, comfortable in my own skin and excited to be alive, something like that. I won't go into details because they are too personal even for the blog, and they'd be boring and trite to you anyway, and maybe it had more to do with external context than the internal mechanisms of the jazz album blasting into my ear, but still! I felt it, for a moment.
The easy part about listening to the "classics" through this column is that there are always some really nice write-ups elsewhere on the internet already that help guide, and feel essential because the person writing them is usually a huge fan already, and knowledgeable about what makes this good album good. I read the Pitchfork review of the release of the deluxe version of A Love Supreme, and while I have very little use for any thoughts about the bonus tracks and alternate takes, since I will most likely never choose to listen to them on purpose, I found the general thoughts about the album to be extremely helpful.
The piece was able to give at least a little context about what the fuck this even is, ya know? How it was a sort of late-in-life masterpiece for Coltrane. How A Love Supreme was a conscious attempt to find union between the wackadoo jazz batshittery and a palatable, understandable jazz for outsiders seeking to know. How Coltrane had very little public personality outside of jazz for the last few years in his life, and so all we know about him is through the music, which is fascinating and puts immense weight onto the songs. Even a casual mention about how he was "experimenting with atonality" was helpful to me; it was like, wait, so there can be purpose behind the skronk of jazz noise? Kinda makes you appreciate drawing a line between this album and the album in which his widow makes her own attempt at talking to god, and might even get there.
Look: I still don't know shit about jazz. I might never get there, as I can't foresee any serious attempts at jumping down that rabbit hole, at least any time soon. But I cannot for the life of me how anyone could totally forsake jazz in toto. Not when you hear that absolutely blistering midsection in "Part 3: Pursuance," for instance. I don't know if I hear god, but I hear something, and I like it.
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