Help: A Love Supreme (Coltrane)

Subject: A Love Supreme
From: Skivee
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 03:26 AM

Okay, my musician pals, I just listened to Coltrane's " A Love Supreme". It's a masterfully done performance; but for the life of me I can't find the pitch center, or metric center of the trio for MOST of the piece. Kinda sounded like three musicians who frequently happened to be playing riffs and runs but in assorted keys and tempos at the same time.
So my question is, "What am I missing?" I strongly suspect that I just don't know what I'm listening for.

Subject: RE: A Love Supreme
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 03:43 AM

On Love Supreme Coltrane's just beginning to get his shit together really. By the time he gets to (say) his session of duos with Rashied Ali he's really cooking with gas...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KncD3ya0B1s

This is music to stand in awe of; like a golden sunrise. You just bask in its perfect beauty and maybe wonder if there isn't a God after all.

Subject: RE: A Love Supreme
From: Leadfingers
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 05:23 AM

Coltrane is a VERY talented musician , but I have to admit that his style of Jazz is NOT to my taste . I much prefer the older style , working round a 'known' melody to the free form stuff

Subject: RE: A Love Supreme
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 08:14 AM

Ashley Kahn's A Love Supreme, covering the development of Coltrane up to the recording of ALS devotes about 20 pages to the structure of it. I haven't time now (I'm on my way out), but I'll try and summarize what that has to say later.

Coltrane had been an addict at one time and Miles Davis dropped him from his group because of it. He went off and cleaned up and found God or a certain spirituality. ALS can be considered a hymn and the intensity of the playing is as important as what he plays, either praising a creator or giving thanks for his gifts.

I'll try and get back to this later, but in the meantime I had just did a quick search for help online; there's a wikipedia article with some references that you might follow up. Also this article All About Jazz - John Coltrane, A Love Supreme and GOD (some strange characters in it).

Also for a formal approach to a part of it you could have a look at pp37-40 of this Thesis (haven't time to give it more than a glance just now).

Mick

Subject: RE: A Love Supreme
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 12:16 PM

It's not for everybody. Ornette Coleman, for instance, might play in C major but switch to using C in any another way entirely in the middle of the riff. After playing with the note C in every way he can think of, he then plays an erasure riff which simply erases everything he just did and then starts off in a new direction while his sidemen struggle to figure out where he's going. He might start off atonally then switch to something with a beautiful melody but then mutate it into something that jumps between tonal and atonal for several bars and play another erasure line.

Jazz is music like nothing else. Most importantly, it is meant to be extremely existential--you play what you feel at the moment and if your mood changes, your music changes with it. It takes no small degree of skill to do this and do it well.

Subject: RE: A Love Supreme
From: Skivee
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 12:17 PM

Thanks folks. I appreciate your insights.

Subject: RE: A Love Supreme
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 01:38 PM

Skivee:

'For the life of me I can't find the pitch center, or metric center of the trio'.

Perhaps you're playing the wrong sort of accordion.

Subject: RE: A Love Supreme
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 02:08 PM

He went off and cleaned up and found God or a certain spirituality.

One of the stories has it he went off and found Sun Ra, who helped him off heroin and via John Gilmore introduced him to higher forms of jazz & tenor playing. Gilmore is all too oft overlooked / forgotten (mainly because he remained a devoted member of Sun Ra's Arkestra until the end) but if given the choice betwen Gilmore & Coltrane I'd go with Gilmore everytime. Don Cherry also spent time with Sun Ra for reasons of addiction and spent time in the Arkestra turning in some of his most beautiful solos;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLGXzAv-fnM

Subject: RE: A Love Supreme
From: Skivee
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 07:04 PM

The Sun Ra connection explains much.

Subject: RE: A Love Supreme
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 08:58 PM

I'm not a jazzman but I just listened to it and, IMHO, it is disconnected... Never seems to resolve... Kinda like John Fahey's worst...

BTW, Coltrane's "solo" is solid...

B~

Subject: RE: Help: A Love Supreme (Coltrane)
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Feb 12 - 03:41 AM

If you find A Love Supreme doesn't quite do it, then try Ascension, once described as the sort of record you could put on first thing on a cold morning to warm the house. Sitting here in our holiday apartment bathed in the golden light of the sun rising over Leith docks, I'd say it's the perfect music to start the day...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgrQhBTDfhk

This music speaks in universal tongues; it makes a joyful noise unto the Creator of both the known and the unknown; it celebrates perfect love in waves of its own exquisite beauty. Hardly the wonder some folk still worship Coltrane as the second coming...