Date: December 9, 1964
Release: IMPULSE GRD-155
Cover Art: view / download
Buy the Album
Perhaps the most fully realized work of art dedicated to God since Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. No other musician has a church of worship built to honor their spirit (The Church of John Coltrane in San Francisco), and no other artist could be more deserving of such acknowledgment. In the liner notes, Coltrane dedicates the record to God as his “humble offering.” But Trane was not alone in his dedication.
His classic quartet–made up of Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Jimmy Garrison — merge to form one transcendent entity, pushing beyond all limits to approach the divine. This recording represents the single greatest achievement of an artist who left the world with an extensive discography full of magnificence. The spiritual intensity of A Love Supreme leaves one profoundly moved and quietly ecstatic. An album to be heard nightly, before bed, like a prayer.
Read more »
Date: November 1961 – November 1963 (recorded)
Release: Pablo #44332
Cover Art: view / download
Buy the Album
This year I started teaching English for the first time, in a New York community college. The student population is almost exclusively goal-oriented. They take their humanities courses because they must in order to get to their careers, not because they like literature, and so I am, in a sense, preaching to the disinterested and the damned, arts-wise.
It’s a challenge, but for an arts evangelist like myself, it’s a dream. This is why people preach to the damned: It’s fun, and you might save a soul, bringing one into the flock of, in my case, the Church of Art.
Read more »
Date: May 25, 1961
Release: Rhino #79965
Cover Art: view / download
Buy the Album
John Coltrane never stopped wondering what he wanted from music, and never stopped pushing the boundaries. Trane genuinely strove to be saintly in his devotion to the divine, creating a body of deeply spiritual music that has come to be regarded as holy by his many devotees. His musical legacy was officially consecrated in 1971, when the Church of Saint John Will-I-Am Coltrane was founded in San Francisco. A gentle and enigmatic man of many voices, Trane was an often fiery, shockingly original musician. Put on any of his records, and the sounds emanating from his saxophone crackle with life. While his music was criticized by some as being too “aggressive,” Trane knew (as some people “knew” in the 1960s) that love was the answer. His albums gained in momentum, one after the other, until his death in 1967, when perhaps he finally went even further beyond.
Read more »
