A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle cover

A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle

Recorded
Released

In late September and early October 1965, John Coltrane played at the Penthouse in Seattle, Washington. Impulse! Records taped one night of music for the album Live In Seattle, and percussionist Joe Brazil made a private recording of this set, which is one of only two times Coltrane is known to have performed his immortal suite A Love Supreme live. The band is expanded, and so is the music. In addition to pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders is on tenor sax, Carlos Ward is on alto, and a second bassist, Donald Rafael Garrett, is up there, too. The studio version of ALS is 33 minutes long; this performance runs 75, with each of the four movements radically extended and solo and duo interludes serving as bridges. Between “Acknowledgement” and “Resolution,” we get a short Garrison-Garrett duo; between “Resolution” and “Pursuance,” Jones takes a solo; and between “Pursuance” and “Psalm,” Garrison returns to the spotlight for a 10-minute bass solo. Coltrane himself is playing with the raw freedom he’d explore until the end of his life, but the strength of the music he’d composed is still audible at the eye of this hurricane.

Phil Freeman

Suggestions
I’m the One cover

I’m the One

Annette Peacock
Where Do We Go from Here? cover

Where Do We Go from Here?

John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler
Waltz for Debby cover

Waltz for Debby

Paul Motian, Scott LaFaro, Bill Evans
10 cover

10

Supersilent
Boca Negra cover

Boca Negra

Chicago Underground Duo
Joy cover

Joy

Karin Krog
The News cover

The News

Andrew Cyrille Quartet
Malphas: Book of Angels, Vol. 3 cover

Malphas: Book of Angels, Vol. 3

John Zorn, Sylvie Courvoisier, Mark Feldman
Suicide cover

Suicide

Suicide