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John Coltrane and the Legacy of an Album
Oxford University Press
June 2013
On Sale: June 18, 2013
176 pages
ISBN: 0199733244
EAN: 9780199733248
Paperback
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Fiction
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.
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