Six Degrees of A Love Supreme

A Love Supreme, quite simply, is the sound of beauty. Rarely, if ever, has an artist been able to communicate the warmth and gratitude in his spiritual essence as directly and palpably as Coltrane does here, in a manner that is neither maudlin nor mystical. The impact is the opposite of spellbinding: It fosters self-reflection a generous, non-judgmental soul check. Both of Coltrane's parents were musicians. Both of his grandfathers were Methodist... ministers. As he writes in the liner notes, he received a spiritual awakening in 1957 (at the age of 31), only to lapse into drug abuse and other bad habits. But by December 1964, he was prepared to celebrate his recommitment with this four-song, 33-minute suite, entering that rarefied zone where simplicity begets profundity. The grandiosity of the opening gong that introduces "Acknowledgement," and Coltrane's first-ever chant on record later in the track (repeating the phrase, "a love supreme") indicates he knew this was a breakthrough. But his first tenor sax of the disc, coming after Jimmy Garrison's bass vamp sets the theme, is anchored in the blues, with his trademark clarity of tone a mixture of assertive faith and willing supplication, a mutual sense of honor and duty. After another bass lead on "Resolution," the sax erupts, and you think he might move from insouciant swing to blitzkrieg hard bop, "Chasin' The Trane" style. Instead he holds back, resolute, wanting you to see and feel what he's feeling. "Pursuance" belongs as much to drummer Elvin Jones as Trane. Jones's snare-cymbal combinations throughout the album have become an influential template for many modern drummers, but they can only try to copy the way he deepens the spiritual quest by riding astride Coltrane's fiery tenor sax (now in blitzkrieg mode) with his own supportive but incendiary pyrotechnics. The closing "Psalm" is musical notation of the poem Coltrane wrote in the liner notes, also called "A Love Supreme." It is a fitting benediction that doesn't suffer from those technical constraints, gliding to a landing in the capacious tones of pianist McCoy Tyner's cathedral chords and Jones's plush tympani beats. In my experience, "A Love Supreme" has never failed to elicit a positive reaction from those who hear it, which indicates that Coltrane's title for the record is spot-on.

Just as you don't need to know or appreciate jazz to be flooded by the spiritual warmth and immediacy of A Love Supreme, so it is with qawwali the devotional music of the Sufis and Shahen Shah. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is an otherworldly vocalist, whose tonal depth, sheer intensity, and both range and arrangement of scats, moans, and extended notes makes him the foremost qawwali singer of all time. Shahen Shah,... which translates to "brightest star," was recorded in his prime in 1989 in a very traditional style that features just the accordion-like harmonium, tablas, handclaps and backing vocals from his "party" (or band). Listening to Khan's lightning-quick scats gallop beside the tabla beats is reminiscent of the Coltrane-Elvin Jones exchanges on A Love Supreme ditto the blues feelings (check the last track here) and the sweet ebb and flow of the tidal momentum. But above all, there is that natural glow signifying that God is in the house, the heart and the creative voice of an extraordinary artist.

Ayler and Coltrane were a two-man mutual admiration society, and had an obvious impact on each other's music. Although not released for another two years, Spiritual Unity was recorded five months before A Love Supreme, and in its immersion in the rapturous, and scabrous, timbre of the saxophone, presaged Coltrane's next, and final, creative phase after A Love Supreme. His association with pianist Cecil Taylor taught him about pushing the envelope of... jazz structure without stooping to noisy anarchy. Thus, he roars like an elephant in places and flattens his sound until it is undistinguishable from bowed strings in others, but a guiding principle spiritual unity? is never abandoned. Speaking of unity, the plucked, stentorian fills of bassist Gary Peacock are similar to Jimmy Garrison's invaluable support on A Love Supreme, and drummer Sonny Murray exemplifies how to sensitize an often woolly avant-garde setting as the third member of the trio.

Al Green was the penultimate romantic-soul singles artist of the 20th century, but his masterpiece discounted "hits" to portray a riveting, eternally joyful inner tug-of-war for his soul between secular love and divine devotion. Actually, there are at least three shoulda-been No. 1 hits on Belle, including the tear-jerking title ballad where he explains to his lady, "It's you I want/ But it's Him that I need." "I Feel Good," is an... ecstatic gospel rouser with splashy, soulful horn fanfares that would have livened up any radio, and "All in All" belongs among the handful of Green's all-time great vocals, be it the swoops and dips in his range and his phrasing or the combustible crescendo where he hollers, "Oh I've cried some tears/ Years and years of tears." Like Coltrane, Green had lapsed in his devotion and was using an intensely personal opus to both make amends and retake his devotional stand. That The Belle Album was his own conception, done without his longtime musical partner Willie Mitchell, makes the achievement all the more impressive.

All two-and-a-quarter hours of these epic concerts are worth your time, featuring the most esteemed composer in jazz history performing with nearly all the members of his most lauded orchestra. But the specific relation to A Love Supreme lies in the world premiere (and lone recording in its original form) of Ellington's most ambitious work, the three-movement suite, Black Brown and Beige, described by the composer as "a parallel to the history... of the American Negro." Just as the church is the spine that sets the posture for that history, Ellington's spiritual, "Come Sunday," is the lodestar of Black Brown and Beige, comprising the second half of the "Black" movement and the summation of the suite near the end of the "Beige" movement. Not incidentally, it was the ideal vehicle for the honey-toned alto sax of Johnny Hodges, whose extended solo is indeed amazingly graceful how sweet the sound. Coltrane, who was 16 at the time of the Carnegie Hall concerts, idolized and emulated Hodges in the formative stages of his career.

"One World, One Love," was a recurring message in the music of Bob Marley, and an abiding tenet of his Rastafari faith. It is delivered with exceptional warmth and generosity even by Marley's high standards on Uprising, an expansively musical and emotional album released less than a year before Marley's death from cancer in 1981. The disc leads off with "Coming In From The Cold," an especially buoyant reggae-soul hybrid with lyrics... of spiritual salvation that wouldn't be out of place in early 20th-century gospel music. Ditto "Zion Train," the first song on the second side, back when vinyl records were the predominant commercial medium. The final three tunes seal the glorious sermon. Marley had never recorded a dance track as overt as the rubbery, irresistible, "Could You Be Loved," or as stark and folk-oriented as the solo acoustic closer, "Redemption Song," in which he answers oppression with quiet dignity, and the reminder that "my hand was made strong/by the hand of the Almighty." Between those two inimitable gems is the self-explanatory, "Forever Loving Jah," in which a dying Marley sings, "So old man river don't cry for me/I have got a running stream of love you see." A love supreme.