Coltrane, John: A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle 1965 LP

After nearly six decades, a private recording of a rare, nightclub performance by John Coltrane of his magnum opus, A Love Supreme, is available for the first time on vinyl 2LP courtesy of Impulse! Records. Recorded in late 1965 on the culminating evening of a historic week-long run at The Penthouse in Seattle, A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle is a musical revelation of historic importance, capturing Coltrane as he began to expand his classic quartet – adding Pharoah Sanders on second saxophone and Donald Garrett on second bass – and catapulting him into the intense, spiritually focused final phase of his career. The significance of A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle is heightened by the fact that Coltrane seldom performed his four-part suite after originally recording it in the studio in 1964. Composed and created as a public declaration of his personal spiritual beliefs and universalist sentiment, it became a best-seller and received a Grammy nod the next year. For more than six decades, it seemed the only recorded public performance of A Love Supreme took place at a French festival at Juan-Les-Pins in July 1965 and was released almost twenty years ago. The tape reels containing this performance from October 1965 sat in the private collection of Seattle saxophonist and educator Joe Brazil, heard by a few fortunate musicians and friends – and largely unknown until now. The music on A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle was recorded with a two-microphone set-up onstage, connected to an Ampex reel-to-reel machine, and the only copies of the tapes were well cared for, yielding a remarkably clear and distortion-free recording. "What's remarkable is that tapes from this era often suffer over the years from heat or moisture damage, or simply being stacked horizontally," writes engineer Kevin Reeves who produced this release. "However, these tapes are in excellent condition... and the results are among the best amateur recordings of John Coltrane we've had the pleasure to work on." A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle now expands the story of both a great musician and a timeless piece of music!