Beyond A Love Supreme: John Coltrane and the Legacy of an Album

by Tony Whyton

Overview

Recorded by his quartet in a single session in 1964, A Love Supreme is widely considered John Coltrane's magnum opus and one of the greatest jazz albums of all time. In Beyond A Love Supreme, Tony Whyton explores both the musical complexities of A Love Supreme and the album's seminal importance in jazz history. Marking Coltrane's transition from the bebop and hard bop of his earlier recordings to the free jazz style perfected throughout the rest of his career, the album also embodies the deep spirituality that characterized the final years of his life. The titles of the four part suite--"Acknowledgment," "Resolution," "Pursuance," and "Psalm"--along with the poem Coltrane composed for inclusion in the liner notes, which he "recites" instrumentally in "Psalm," reflect the religious aspect of the album, a quality that contributes to its mystique and symbolic importance within the canon of major jazz recordings. But Whyton also shows how A Love Supreme challenges many of the traditional, unreflective assumptions that permeate jazz culture--the binary oppositions between improvisation and composition, black music and white music, live performance and studio recording. He critically examines many of the mythologizing narratives about how the album was conceived and recorded and about what it signifies in terms of the trajectory of Coltrane's personal life. Sifting through the criticism of late Coltrane, Whyton suggests ways of listening to these recordings that go beyond the conventional ideologies of mainstream jazz practice and open the music to a wider range of responses. Filled with fresh insights into one of the most influential recordings in jazz history, Beyond A Love Supreme is an indispensable resource for jazz scholars, jazz musicians, and fans and aficionados at all levels.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199993116
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/21/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Tony Whyton is Professor of Jazz and Musical Cultures at the University of Salford and the author of Jazz Icons: Heroes, Myths, and the Jazz Tradition. He is the founding editor of the international journal The Source: Challenging Jazz Criticism and co-editor of the Jazz Research Journal.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1. ELATION - ELEGANCE - EXALTATION 2. From Reification to Deification: A Love Supreme and the Canonisation of Jazz 3. Critical Listening: reviewing the late Coltrane recordings 4. A Love Supreme Remixed Notes Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

"Every creative work of art takes on a life of its own when it is discovered by and shared among audiences. [Coltrane's] A Love Supreme is no different. Whyton looks at the afterlife, so to speak, of this album as a means to identify issues of society, culture, and history." —Notes, Journal of the Music Library Association

From the Publisher