Tracks: Part 1: Acknowledgement // Part 2: Resolution // Part 3: Pursuance // Part 4: Psalm
Review:
I'm coming to this album again for the first time in a long while, now imbued with the perspective that comes from having slogged up through the foothills of this list. It's interesting, having a slightly (albeit, only slightly) expanded knowledge of jazz, to listen through A Love Supreme and appreciate the ways in which Coltrane and his band have pulled-apart bop structures and then reassembled them into something loose and free and very, very beautiful. Kind of Blue was extremely free in its improvising, but the tracks on that album still seemed to hew to the notion of introducing a theme, playing it a few times, and then suddenly wandering off on a free and abstract (albeit, very pretty) jam. Conversely, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady displayed an awe-inspiring degree of compositional acumen, effectively rewriting the rules of jazz from the ground up.
On A Love Supreme, however, Coltrane seems to have found a balance between the beauty that comes from improvisation and the beauty that comes from adherence to traditional forms, and has hit upon a way of mixing bop with free jazz that is extremely loose and lyrical, and at times rather wild, but which also maintains a great deal of coherency, and progresses logically from album opener to close as though it were one single track (which, I suppose, is a fairly valid way of looking at it). The result is an album which is both highly experimental, and immediately accessible - a gorgeous, swirling mass of cymbals and saxophones anchored by Latin dance rhythms and woven-through with unusual-yet-catchy melodies. It's like watching the waves churn-up foam from the ocean on a cloudy day.
I will admit that there are bits of this album that I don't really like - specifically, the middle section, where the horns and piano die down in favour of some improvisation by the drums and bass. Now bear in mind, I have nothing against drums and bass - I just don't think the solos are all that great. Then again, it does break-up the album, providing some interesting sonic contrasts, and paves the way for the absolutely beautiful "Psalm" to finish with. The tones conjured-up on this album really are gorgeous - it's amazing to think what they acheived with a more-or-less live recording in 1964. It sounds like nothing else on Earth.
I don't adore A Love Supreme (which is odd, because by all rights I should) but at the same time I can't find much to fault it for. It's beautiful, spiritual music that manages to be just abstract enough to be moving, without ever giving-up the rhythms and melodies that make a person listen in the first place. I think this is a classic example of one of those albums where, even if you hate it with every fiber of your being, you will still be a better person for having listened to it (the Ulysses of jazz albums, maybe?). I'm very, very glad that it exists, even if I don't listen to it more. Maybe I should play it more often, and then I'd finally love it as much as every other person on the planet happens to.
Anyway I like it. It's a very pretty sound.
A+
No comments:
Post a Comment