Fabulous
Close to the best ever jazz album and all for two downloads! Why do people complain about value on EMusic!
Write a Review 9 Member Reviews
One of the best
If not the best Jazz album of all time,
Fascinating
Make sure you listen to it using a good pair of floor speakers, preferably 5.2 surround. If you have that, just the the CD, it's a much better experience!
Different edition, same recording
The live version of A Love Supreme was also issued as one continuous track. That version as well as Impressions from the same concert can be found here: http://www.emusic.com/album/Live-In-Antibes-1965-Live-In-Antibes-1965-MP3-Download/11304580.html
Praise for the live 1965 recording
Martin Longley, in a review on amazon.co.uk, says, ''It might be heretical to say this, but the live entity poses a serious challenge to the studio original. The recording quality is surprisingly immediate, and the extended work-out is like a fresh draught of a favourite potion. It might not be as studied and refined as the studio version, but Coltrane's blowing has a fearsome, brutal edge, particularly once the tenor-drum battle with Elvin Jones erupts during "Pursuance", the leader's controlled howling scraping out his horn's smooth throat-lining.''
Great!
Contane's studio version of, A love Supreme, is one of my favorite albums. This live album is another great way to enjoy the tunes. The sound quality is pretty good, and the band is amazing.
Coltrane Always Astounds
the sound quality is great, it sounds like an old jazz recording should. All it's missing is the hiss and pop from the record needle. You want pretty recording quality go get some Yellowjackets or Gorver Washington. Coltrane is on top of his game too on these recordings, but then again he was always on. And 40 minutes of listening pleasure for only two downloads? Come on, what else can you ask for!
This Is Art
Never again will there be an artist as modest but brilliant as Coltrane, who practised his sax up to 14 hours a day for your listening pleasure. This is superlative art, no matter what limitations the recording might reveal. Listen to one of the world's greatest quartets and be marvelled.
Supreme, Supreme
Tale is that the John Coltrane Quartet only performed A Love Supreme live in concert once. This is it. In other words, this is one of the most powerful bands in the history of jazz playing their most powerful composition and knowing that there was a good chance they would never do it again. The emotional content of this performance is accordingly stratospheric. There are sonic compromises to hear this music. The sound is "60s Concert OK." It's nowhere near the quality of Van Gelder's Love Supreme. There are also musical compromises. The ensemble is sloppy entering the Acknowledgment. Some of the transitions are not as smooth as they might have been. But ultimately, many will find that the humanity displayed by these musical avatars deepens the listening experience. Tell you what: Go find some other way to spend fifty cents that's as rewarding. Or download this stuff and listen to it over and over again.
Recommended Albums
eMusic Features
New This Week: The Shins, Esperanza Spalding & More
By J. Edward Keyes, Editor-in-Chief
I've been back from Austin for about 48 hours, but my body is only just now starting to adjust to things like normal sleep patterns, being stationary for long periods of time, and not drinking beer every day. Soon, I will stop having dreams that I am being chased by a giant, furious side of brisket. I look forward to those days in breathless anticipation. Until they arrive, here's this week's New Arrivals: The Shins, Port… more »
Six Degrees of The Byrds’ Fifth Dimension
By Kevin Whitehead, eMusic Contributor
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
Icon: John Coltrane
By Kevin Whitehead, eMusic Contributor
No jazz musician inspires flattering imitators and devoted listeners like saxophonist John Coltrane. One reason is because there's a Coltrane for every taste: the yearning balladeer; the hard bop jackrabbit, scaling intricate improvised lines over the chords to standard tunes; the ambitious conceptualist, constructing ever-more elaborate steeplechases to challenge himself; the exponent of spiritual, roiling high-energy free jazz. Coming up in the 1950s, the tenor saxophonist apprenticed with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, leaders who loved… more »
Coltrane in the 1950s: Late Bloomer
By Kevin Whitehead, eMusic Contributor
In May 1956, when Sonny Rollins and guest John Coltrane locked horns on the friendly throwdown "Tenor Madness," Coltrane was 29, and Rollins four years his junior. But at this point in their careers, Sonny had the jackrabbit head start. He'd been recording under his own name since 1951, and was much admired; Coltrane hadn't yet made a record of his own. It's easy to forget, sometimes, Coltrane wasn't always lionized; some reviewers of his early… more »
The Rise and Fall of Lucky Thompson
By Kevin Whitehead, eMusic Contributor
A few years ago, Italian saxophonist Daniele D'Agaro was visiting Chicago, and a critic friend put on a fairly obscure record to stump him. D'Agaro listened for about three seconds, said: "Lucky." Good ears. He knows the distinctive sound of Lucky Thompson after he started hanging out in Paris and playing sumptuous tenor saxophone ballads recalling old idol Don Byas's Parisian sides. On "Solitude" and "We'll Be Together Again," from Lucky in Paris 1959, his tenor's… more »