A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle

A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle is a live album by American saxophonist John Coltrane, released on October 22, 2021, through Impulse! Records. It was recorded on October 2, 1965, at the Seattle jazz club The Penthouse, by saxophonist Joe Brazil. The tapes were found five years after Brazil's death in October 2008 by the saxophonist Steve Griggs. It is one of only two recorded live performances of Coltrane's 1965 album A Love Supreme, the other being a July 1965 recording from the Jazz à Juan jazz festival in Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, France, which was released in 2002 as part of the deluxe edition of A Love Supreme.

Background

During September 14–26, 1965, the John Coltrane Quartet played an engagement at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco. The saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, whose music Coltrane admired, and who had previously recorded with Coltrane on Ascension, went to hear the group and was invited to sit in. According to Sanders, "[H]e told me then that he was thinking of changing the group and changing the music, to get different sounds. He asked me to play with him." At the same time, the multi-instrumentalist Donald Garrett, who had played with Coltrane's group in 1961 as a second bassist, was also asked to sit in. At the end of the two-week gig, both Sanders and Garrett were asked to join the band, and accompanied it to the next engagement, September 27–October 2, at the Penthouse in Seattle. On September 30, the group recorded the music heard on Live in Seattle (Impulse!, 1971) at the Penthouse, and on October 1, they recorded Om (Impulse!, 1968) at a separate location. They returned to the Penthouse the following day, where, with guest saxophonist Carlos Ward, they performed A Love Supreme.

Critical reception

On review aggregator Metacritic, the album has a score of 92 out of 100 from seven critics' reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". A review in Relix calls this recording "a 75-minute journey through free-jazz heaven".

Track listing

Personnel

The John Coltrane Quartet

• John Coltrane – tenor saxophone, percussion
• Jimmy Garrison – double bass
• Elvin Jones – drums
• McCoy Tyner – piano

Additional personnel

• Carlos Ward – alto saxophone
• Pharoah Sanders – tenor saxophone, percussion
• Donald Garrett – double bass
• Joe Brazil – recording

Charts

References