
At various points, A Love Supreme is deceptively accessible or stupefyingly complex, so powerfully swung that you want to dance or so multirhythmic that the room spins, based on straightforward scales or on bizarrely uprooted chromatic scales. An incredible variety of textures is present throughout: solo bass, solo drums, lilting accompaniment supporting a careening Coltrane solo, all-out no-holds-barred polyphonic chaos from all musicians, delicate interweaving between two or more musicians, even a brief multi-tracked septet at the very climax.
It is the most thematic piece of non-classical music I have ever heard--so thematic, in fact, that I question labeling it as non-classical. Part 1, "Acknowledgment," opens with a forceful and distinctive bass line (covered by disjointed, atonal piano chords) that is utilized everywhere: first intermingled to brilliant effect in Coltrane's opening solo, then sequenced obviously and almost randomly on the sax through what seems like every key, then appearing in Coltrane's brief, weird chant of "a love su-preme, a love su-preme." This theme and others from the acidic Part 1 reappear in the more frenetic and thrashing Part 3, "Pursuance" (aptly titled for what amounts to a musical chase), which appears after the well-juxtaposed, more relaxed, and more "traditional" (if that's possible) Part 2, "Resolution," which sounds more like a jam tune but is also incredibly thematic, featuring a "head" which falls through various strange chords but resolves logically. After the agony of Part 3 comes the gentle, seemingly pulseless, minor pentatonic Part 4, "Psalm," in which Coltrane "reads" a religious poem he wrote (included in the liner notes) by playing its ebb and flow on his saxophone, with its recurring, plangent "Thank you God" theme.
This album is fabulous and deserves many repeated listenings. I am chomping at the bit to hear more Coltrane as well as the Turtle Island String Quartet's recent Grammy-winning cover of this album.
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