Consumer Guide Album

John Coltrane: A Love Supreme [Impulse, 1964]
This four-track, 33-minute January 1965 release is without question Coltrane's most beloved album. Only certified gold in 2001, it never cracked the Billboard 200 as it cemented 'Trane's divine status in Japan, was adored by American hippies from the Byrds and Carlos Santana on down, and served as theme music to Lester Bangs's wake at CBGB. The through-composed product of two weeks of solitary brainstorming at the Long Island home Coltrane had established with his new wife Alice, it's meditative rather than freewheeling, with each member of his classic quartet instructed to embark on his own harmonically mapped excursion and the title set to a chanted four-note melody you could hum in your sleep. I'm on my fourth consecutive play with no signs of tune fatigue as I write, plus my wife loves it. All true, all remarkable. But how much you value it, I expect, depends on how much faith you place in your own spirituality. Having finally freed my changer to move on to My Favorite Things, which I've loved since I bought it in 1960, I wonder how soon I'll play it again and regret to say that that may well depend on who dies when. And having purchased the Deluxe Edition CD to augment my vinyl, I say go for the single. A−