Cathartic Coltrane
John Coltrane’s raw, live 1965 Seattle account of A Love Supreme is now issued complete
John Coltrane
A Love Supreme – Live in Seattle 1965 John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders (tenor sax), Carlos Ward (alto sax), Mccoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison, Donald Garrett (bass),
Elvin Jones (drums)
Impulse! CD: 8116482;
MC: 119029; LP: GR-00155
The 1964 studio recording of A Love Supreme became something of a coffee-table album for the would-be hip. Six months later Coltrane recorded the ostensibly-anarchic Ascension, driving away many admirers, so A Love Supreme seemed like a final refuge.
In 1987 French label Esoldun released a July 1965 live recording from Juan-les-pins. This more extroverted interpretation perhaps channelled energy spilling over from Ascension. By September Coltrane’s band was in Seattle, and in 1971 Impulse issued private recordings as Live in Seattle. This latest release originates from that same visit. Along with extended, more turbulent versions of the main movements, there are interludes of varying value. Coltrane’s protégé, Pharoah Sanders, whose work divided opinion, had just officially joined the band, but guest Carlos Ward tends to outshine him here. Everyone, though, is pulled along in the Coltrane-jones slipstream. This has to be pickof-the-month for historical interest alone, but for those of us who admire the passion and abandonment of late-period Coltrane this is a gift. Hardly a comfortable ‘listen’, but the passionate intensity feels therapeutically cathartic in these anxious times. ★★★★★