“A Love Supreme”, recorded 50 years ago by John Coltrane and his Quartet

A Love Supreme is a studio album recorded by John Coltrane’s quartet in December 1964, which was released in February of the following year by Impulse! memories It is considered Coltrane’s best work, as it combines the hard bop sensibility of his early career with the modal jazz and free jazz he practiced later.

Best Sheet Music download from our Library.

The disc was recorded in a single session on December 9, 1964 at Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs (New Jersey). It seems that Coltrane was inspired by his home in Dix Hills (Long Island, New York, although it has also been suggested that his proximity to Islam was a source of inspiration for the album.

Music

The album is a four-part suite, divided into tracks: ‘Acknowledgement’ (which includes the mantra that gives the suite its name), ‘Resolution’, ‘Pursuance’ and ‘Psalm’. It is a spiritual record, very representative of a personal struggle for purity, and expresses the deep gratitude of the artist for his talent, which he understands as something where a higher spiritual power intervenes.

The record starts with some touches of a gong, followed by some rubbing of cymbals. Jimmy Garrison then plays a four-note motif with the bass, which structures the entire movement and precedes the entrance of Coltrane’s solo, which makes variations on the four-note motif until a moment dedicated to repeating the four notes in various transpositions. After several repetitions, the motif becomes the vocal chant ‘A Love Supreme’, performed by Coltrane himself.

Please, subscribe to our Library.

If you are already a subscriber, please, check our NEW SCORES’ page every month for new sheet music. THANK YOU!

In the final movement, Coltrane performs what he calls a ‘musical narrative’ and what Lewis Porter describes as a ‘wordless recitation’ of a devotional poem, that is, Coltrane interprets the words of the poem with the saxophone, without pronouncing them. The poem (and Coltrane’s solo) end with the words ‘Elation. Elegance. exaltation All from God. Thank you God. Amen’ Some sources suggest that this interpretation is a tribute to the sermons of African-American preachers.

Personnel

John Coltrane – bandleader, liner notes, vocals, tenor saxophone
Jimmy Garrison – double bass
Elvin Jones – drums, gong, timpani
McCoy Tyner – piano

Additional personnel

Archie Shepp – tenor saxophone on alternate takes of "Acknowledgement"
Art Davis – double bass on alternate takes of "Acknowledgement"
Rudy Van Gelder – engineering and mastering
Bob Thiele – production and cover photo
George Gray/Viceroy – cover design
Victor Kalin – gatefold illustration
Joe Lebow – liner design

John Coltrane – A Love Supreme [Full Album]

Track List:

Part I – Acknowledgement 0:00 Part II – Resolution 7:42 Part III – Pursuance 15:02 Part IV – Psalm 25:44

A Love Supreme: The Gospel According to John Coltrane

To talk about A love supreme is to talk not only about an album, but about an entire experience that goes beyond music, which has a spiritual background without which it would be impossible to understand what is undoubtedly one of the greatest works of jazz . Whoever thinks that an instrumental jazz album is limited to strictly musical exercises, chords and scales, should delve deeply into this work to discover that a jazz album can be as intellectually, emotionally and spiritually complex as a movie or even as a book

‘s music John Coltrane is not always the easiest or most accessible, especially for those who are not at all familiar with his discography. Going from one Coltrane album to another is like changing from night to day, especially in the work of his later years. Even considering that his solo career was unfortunately brief, Coltrane drifted greatly in his style, a drift all the faster the closer we got to the time of his early death. This evolution is even more fascinating when we notice that what is strictly musical—yes, even the scales and chords—was directly affected by the strictly extra-musical spiritual and intellectual evolution of its author.

Coltrane’s style in his early years, when he was still playing in other bands, took shape thanks to the be bop of the 1940s: when he heard Charlie Parker his world turned upside down and Parker’s enormous influence was always present during those early years. . Added to that influence, during the 1950s, was working side by side with monsters of the caliber of Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk . In that decade, be bop was no longer the avant-garde, but rather a well-assumed and established paradigm, so Coltrane began to open himself to different influences, to investigate, to read, to appreciate music beyond jazz and beyond North American music. . He was interested in learning about world music, particularly African and Asian sounds.

With the arrival of the sixties, many jazzmen began to experiment in search of new paths and Coltrane was no stranger to this trend. The revolutionary change of decade coincided with his launch as a solo artist: in the last six or seven years of his life he went from performing jazz that was more or less close to convention to making some extreme avant-garde recordings that even left the musicians who were perplexed.

They worked with him and that we, mortals, could never understand enough to be sure if they make any sense and if Coltrane had reached new states of musical consciousness, or if he had simply lost his way in the zeal of his search. Anyone who has encountered an album like Ascension will know what I mean: it is difficult to honestly say that one has enjoyed everything on that album, even after trying it repeatedly. There are people who claim to enjoy it, it’s true, but that’s not my case and I can safely assume that it’s the case for 99% of people. The Coltrane of the sixties opened his range of sounds so much that at times it became completely disconcerting.

But A love supreme , produced right in the middle of that decade, is a completely different thing. Published in 1965, a year before the aforementioned Ascension and two years before his death, it shows a Coltrane who does not put the avant-garde desire above all else. A love supreme is not a mere musical experiment but is subject to the transmission of a direct message, an extra-musical message, a spiritual message. Unlike crazy things like Ascension , A love supreme is within the limits of what almost any listener can understand if they pay attention.

In fact, there is a fairly broad consensus that A love supreme is an absolute masterpiece. It was recorded right at the boiling point of Coltrane’s musical evolution. Divided into four movements—like a classical concerto —it is actually quite close to orthodoxy, at least from today’s perspective. On this album Coltrane is less concerned with exercises in interpretive virtuosity or syntectualized experiments, and more with composition, with the structure of the work itself. This is probably their most complete album as a group.

But perhaps the most fascinating thing about A love supreme , in addition to its musical depth, is the surprising amount of concepts and messages it contains. Especially when it comes to an album in which there are no lyrics (or rather, in which only three words are pronounced at the end of the first movement). Perhaps to some the expression “conceptual album” will sound high-sounding and pretentious, but the truth is that A love supreme is not only a conceptual album: it is a profession of faith. Literally. After a long struggle with alcohol and heroin—Coltrane’s erratic behavior during the 1950s even caused Miles Davis to fire him from his band—the saxophonist had a spiritual experience in 1957.

Or as he called it, an “awakening.” “spiritual”, of which it is difficult to know specific details but which we know marked a definitive turning point in his existence. As a result of that mystical experience, Coltrane gave up alcohol and heroin. He began, in his own words, a “better and more productive” life. He became a believer, although he did not exactly follow the dictates of any specific dogma (“I believe in all religions”) and professed a Christian ad libitum that took influences from many other non-Christian beliefs. Since his conversion in 1957, Coltrane dedicated himself to reading and collecting a large number of books on religion and spirituality from various parts of the world, in an attempt to develop his own belief system that fit his personality. It is exactly the same process of research and study on world music that, in parallel, he was carrying out in his professional field.

Both study processes, the spiritual and the musical, finally converged at the end of 1964 when, after several years of spiritual search, Coltrane locked himself with his quartet in a studio to record what, in his own words, was a “spiritual declaration.” He expressed his religious concerns in an unusual recording that surprised even those who participated in it.

Coltrane dimmed the lighting in the studio until it was as dim as “a nightclub,” as his pianist recalled, or perhaps more like a temple. He entered the studio with his new work perfectly planned in advance, and yet he barely gave verbal instructions to his musicians. He let the chemistry acquired by the band over several years work on its own. There were few orders, few guidelines, and the musicians constantly used “non-verbal communication” to reach agreement. Because Coltrane was peacefully circumspect, brooding. “Sorry,” he would say humbly when he took a wrong note during a take, as if he were a mere paid employee and not the famous leader of the band.

The recording was a curious combination of pre-planning and improvised inventiveness. On the one hand, the piano, double bass or drum solos were improvised. But on the other hand, one of the few explicit instructions that Coltrane’s musicians received when improvising was that they respect the internal structure of each of the four movements, a structure already determined by him in advance. Coltrane began doing things with his saxophone that he had not done before, but his musicians realized that the famous natural improviser was not actually improvising .

During his own solos, Coltrane used very specific musical elements at very specific times, and not at others, and he did so according to very obvious and unusual patterns in his style. His solos followed a structure that was determined, or allowed to be determined, by the specific structure of each movement. Because? Well, because John Coltrane was building his solos based on purely musical elements that made reference, however, to extra-musical elements such as very specific religious and spiritual symbols that we will talk about later.

The album, then, contains hidden messages and surprising revelations that can make your hair stand on end when we finally discover them (very particularly regarding the fourth and final movement, as we will see). When we talk so much about fantasy novels like The Da Vinci Code , the truth is that in this album we have a true “John Coltrane code.” Just like it sounds. The legendary saxophonist even took care of details on the record folder—like the text printed on it—that he had never worried about before and wouldn’t worry too much about again later.

It is clear that he considered this album as something different, as an extremely personal work, as a diary open to all listeners. Even for those of us who do not share his faith in a higher entity, Coltrane’s stark religious sincerity is at times overwhelming. It is not even difficult to imagine a confirmed atheist shedding a tear when he comes to grasp the spiritual meaning so deeply fundamental to understanding several of these musical passages. Because they are passages that overflow sincerity. Yeah, A love supreme is a complex album, interpretable in a thousand ways as befits the cutting-edge work of a genius. But at the same time it exudes a simple, clean and one could almost say endearingly childlike honesty.

As we said, a majority of Coltrane’s fans would cite A Love Supreme as his best album and he certainly considered it the most important of his career. Perhaps entering A Love Supreme for the first time can be cumbersome, at least at first, and even more so when a humble columnist is going to try to summarize its essence through poor verbal language that could never honor what it sounds like here. But I guarantee that diving into this album will always be worth it in the end. It’s like a movie whose plot we don’t understand at first, but whose ending will leave us stunned and overwhelmed. The truth is that, like many great works, this album requires dedication and patience. And like any great work, it more than rewards you. After all, we are talking about an act of supreme love.

1. Acknowledgement

The first movement of A love supreme is born in the ether, floating, with an atmospheric introduction: just half a minute to place the listener in a state of alert. A gong sounds: Coltrane was studying Asian sonorities, whose echo will appear sometimes on this album, and that gong is like the beginning of a religious ceremony in some remote time. In this introduction the saxophone phrases with the cadence of a preacher who requires the attention of his congregation. Coltrane, in fact, deliberately uses intonations typical of the speech of the evangelical pastors with whom he had grown up. It will not be the only time on the album that his instrument constructs prosodies almost identical to those of a religious sermon; in fact, that will be the predominant characteristic of several of his solos.

After that fleeting introduction, the double bass begins to play, playing with four notes (0:32). At first listen, these four notes might seem like a simple base on which to develop the movement. But not. They are something different. In reality, those four notes are the main phrase of the first movement, something we will only find out near the end. It is the most important musical phrase on the album; the four notes that define it. A revelation is contained in those four notes. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s just keep them in memory.

Discreet percussion and a piano that gently accentuates the rhythm will serve as the basis for Coltrane to launch into a melody that, once again, imitates the modulations of a preacher (1:03). His band will be playing jazz , but he plays different music. That melody begins to progressively decompose from the second round (1:20), inadvertently dragging us until the moment when it stops being easily hummable. It’s like a preacher approaching ecstasy: before we realize it, Coltrane has almost completely destructured the melodies, distributing them into nervous three-note warbles (2:06). These three-note figures, called triplets , constitute a first symbolic allusion to divinity. These three notes represent the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The triplets give way to filigrees that begin to escape more and more from the original structure of the stanza (2:31). The phrasings are decomposed according to the dictates of Charlie Parker’s musical philosophy – although on this album Coltrane is sounding less Parkerian than in other previous works – and all the time he has been playing with the same harmonic skeleton; Although it is difficult to grasp it, we hear different melodies but always based on the same one. The solo is not a mere succession of occurrences.

We are already halfway through the topic. Coltrane decides that the games of melodic decomposition have given enough of themselves and that the time has come to turn to timbres to make a difference. Thus, John makes his instrument moan, which exhales a high-pitched, insistent and hoarse cry (3:50). It gives us the impression that we are at the climax of the preaching, the moment in which the pastor, carried away by the fervor of his followers, raises his face to the ceiling with his hoarse throat invoking God. Quickly and briefly bursts of a few isolated notes return (4:12).

Then we will follow the opposite path: once ecstasy is reached, the melody will begin to rest again. Calm returns. The religious ceremony ends, but the first movement has not yet finished. Because suddenly we hear the sax playing stubborn little four-note phrases, little chants that come and go (4:54). Although it may not seem like it due to the drop in intensity, we are reaching the true spiritual core of the theme: those four notes (the same ones that the double bass played at the beginning, remember?) constitute, as we said, the most important phrase not only of the movement, but of the entire album. But what does it mean? Why start the piece with those four notes on the double bass, and then go through a whole storm of melodies and finally return to them?

Well: that four-note phrase is the four syllables of A love supreme . The phrase that gives its name to the album. That phrase is the equivalent of God. And Coltrane has given us hidden signs of this: he interprets it in all possible keys, in the twelve tonalities that a musical scale contains. This is something unusual in almost any piece of music and certainly something unusual in Coltrane’s style, but it was a premeditated act. He is trying to tell us that just as those four notes are in the entire musical scale, God is everywhere. Whatever key we name, the supreme love of God is there in the form of those four notes. All the music on this album, like everything in creation, is the vehicle through which God tries to communicate with us. There’s more: Coltrane plays that four-note phrase thirty-seven times. It is precisely the age he is at the time of recording the album. That is, supreme love has also been present in each of the years of his life.

After going through all the possible keys, those four notes are finally anchored in a single key and we are left with a repetitive phrasing (5:50):

F A b F B b , F A b F B b , F A b F B b …

That the saxophone repeats several times, softly extinguishing… and then reappears, but no longer on the sax, but pronounced – to our surprise – out loud by Coltrane himself (6:04):

«A love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme…»

This is the only vocal part on the entire album. It is the first and only moment in which Coltrane expresses himself with his voice, the only sung fragment. There are no longer any doubts: those four notes are, as an isolated phrase, the most important on the album. Four notes that (like the four movements of the record) represent the trinity on the one hand, and God as a unique entity on the other. One and triune: the mystery of God. This first movement has been a recognition of the Father, the first of the figures of that trinity.

2. Resolution

The solo double bass plays a harmonic introduction executed almost with blows. Suddenly the entire quartet starts without warning, led by a sharp E flat from the saxophone (0:20). The main theme bursts in like a crystal clear slash. We know that Coltrane had been experimenting for some time with a particular way of playing high notes, searching for a sound that suited his expressive needs, a sound that was important to him even though many listeners might not notice the difference. Most likely, behind this technical approach to the high notes was the intention to imitate with the instrument the ecstatic religious songs of the churches, as we have already seen in the first movement.

We hear that the drums of the famous Elvis Jones fill everything with setbacks, rolls and aggressive accents, that the group’s base is frenetic, that the band rides on high. But meanwhile Coltrane plays a clear melody, in which he introduces elements of blues and some oriental hints, but does not allow himself to be carried away by the furious jazz of his companions. Thus, this second movement begins with a distinction between the spirituality of the sax and the more earthly march of the other three instruments.

However, we are no longer just attending a sermon. The speech of his saxophone also begins to become earthly. Of course, it recurrently returns to E flat (1:14) to break the monotony and mark the beginning of the stanzas; that E flat continues to provide an element of evangelical exaltation.

‘s piano enters McCoy Tyner as soloist and the change of register in the main melody is total (1:45). The piano provides us with the first purely be bop moments of the album. Its melodies—nervous, vibrant and earthy—contrast with the previous saxophone singing. The mystical winks of the saxophone have given way to the jazz much more complex and carnal of the pianist. We have descended from the vapor of the clouds to the thick smoke of nightclubs. From heaven to earth. It is a fleeting and forced reminder of Coltrane’s be bop years, which were the years of his addiction to alcohol and drugs. When the saxophone returns (3:55) it is infected by the keyboardist’s enthusiastic materialism.

The moaning, the hoarseness, almost the despair returns and we no longer know if Coltrane is preaching or if he is simply lamenting (4:29). Allusions to divinity return through stinging three- and four-note phrasing (4:53). Is he saying “why have you abandoned me”? The melodies decompose until they border on disorder. A disorder that is almost like a heresy: it is the human order that tries to replace the divine order. As if God had become incarnate as a man. Just because Acknowledgement was the Father, Resolution is the Son. Who has come down from heaven to earth to experience earthly life. A Son who has temporarily abandoned his divine nature and has become flesh.

Finally, as an indication that it is time to resolve the second movement, the high E flat returns (6:25), that is, the spiritual song returns, the prayer and order return. Coltrane forces the group to end the piece in a calm, heavenly key. Resolution ends in the ether, floating and indefinite, just as Aknowdlegement had begun . The first side of the vinyl thus concludes by closing a circle: it is born from the ether and returns to the ether. That is: a birth, a death and a resurrection. We have traveled from heaven to earth, and again we have ascended to heaven.

3. Pursuance

Side B begins. The third movement begins with a very characteristic drum solo by Elvin Jones (whoever is familiar with the music of Jimi Hendrix will instantly recognize that style that his drummer Mitch Mitchell imitated so well … at times it is difficult! distinguish them!). The battery is like a storm. It is a man’s stormy fight against evil. It is the most earthly form of music, pure percussion, pure human drive, pure humanity without the hint of spirituality of the Son of God turned into flesh. The sax melody enters again with triplets, with new references to the trinity and this time in a more nervous way, as if insisting on calling his group mates to order. It’s a warning sign. If the Father implied recognition ( Aknowledgement ) and the Son implied resurrection ( Resolution ), here we have the Holy Spirit trying to rescue the human spirit from its unfortunate condition of slavery to earthly impulses.

When the piano appears, it does so again as a vehicle for the expression of disordered carnality (1:53). The saxophone answers him with a nervous melody (4:16), a fiery call for attention that will soon begin to decompose into a torrent of tireless insistence (4:42). At times he seems to want to speak to the human heart with his own earthly language (5:15) even reaching desperate supplication (6:36) and no less desperate allusions to God (6:49). Finally the battery discharges its last stormy momentum (7:16). It is a last burst of carnality, but finally the third movement of the album shows us the human yielding to the Holy Spirit: after the storm comes calm with the discovery of heavenly truth. This is confirmed by the double bass when, already in the middle of a haven of peace marked by simple phrasings with which this third part ends, it briefly intones the name of God, the four-note phrase, supreme love (8:10).

 4. Psalm

Before explaining the meaning of this fourth and final movement, the first thing to do is to listen to the song without further ado. Without knowing what you are trying to express. From ignorance of what secrets it contains. Let’s listen to Coltrane’s sax, now continually in a calm tone, at peace with itself, without a hint of despair or disorder. Melodies where the celestial reigns and where human imperfections have disappeared. There are even moments of intense devotion. Let’s listen, and then we will explain what secret all this contains:

Evidently, Coltrane has already found God, he has found him without a doubt, definitively. If the first three movements represented the trinity but also expressed the internal struggles of Coltrane’s spirit, this fourth movement is a definitive hymn to God as the supreme and unique entity to which the saxophonist has finally given his spirit. There will no longer be piano solos , not on drums, not on double bass. Now the only thing that counts is Coltrane’s sax.

But there is more. A detail that John Coltrane did not reveal at the time, which many listeners logically did not notice when listening to the album, and which is undoubtedly the biggest—and chilling—surprise of A love supreme .

The printed folder for A Love Supreme included a poem written by John Coltrane himself, apparently a note of gratitude to God like any thank you note that many artists include on their albums, although this time in the form of a prayer. But some seasoned listeners, while listening to the record, discovered an astonishing fact that constitutes a revelation in itself and that Coltrane never revealed: the melodies of the fourth movement, Psalm , corresponded exactly to the phrases written in that sentence printed on the record. Note per syllable. Thus, the melodic content of the fourth and final movement is now revealed to us in all its meaning: it is the musical representation of the psalm written by Coltrane to express his faith. He first spoke of God to us, his fellow humans, singing four notes in his own voice at the end of Aknowledgement . But now Coltrane speaks—no longer simply playing the saxophone—for the second time, although addressing God directly and doing so through his instrument, with which he thinks he can address God in the most dignified way.

Once we are aware of the fact that the sax phrases correspond exactly to the phrases of the printed psalm, that is when the beauty of the fourth movement knocks us out. As a Coltrane scholar once said, you will never be exactly the same—at least from the point of view of musical appreciation—after listening to Psalm knowing what message it secretly contains. Just as God, Coltrane seems to think, hides behind dark mysteries but rewards the man who maintains his faith, he has camouflaged his message under musical mysteries but will also reward the listener who pays enough attention to discover them. John Coltrane, well, he has achieved it. It doesn’t matter whether your listener is religious or not. In musical terms, through the act of supreme love that constitutes this album, he has made us experience in first person, just as he experienced it before, the experience of a revelation:

It is not necessary to have any religious belief to appreciate the supreme beauty of this message, nor is it necessary to be a believer to admire the greatness of a cathedral. For Coltrane, the music on this album contained a religious truth that for him had become the most important thing in life. And anyone can feel moved by that spiritual truth transmuted here into artistic beauty (what’s more: an American ecclesiastical congregation even canonized Coltrane). For this reason, among other things, many maintain that A love supreme is his most determining legacy. At the very least, it is a work that stands out on its own from the rest of his discography, because it is focused from a unique perspective, because it is a spiritual legacy as well as a musical one, but where the musical is at the height of the message that is allowed to be transmitted. .

John Coltrane died three years after the publication of this album, at the age of forty, as a result of a devastating cancer. We cannot be sure whether or not he has finally reunited with his God, but if he has, we are sure that God himself has asked him to perform a prayer for Him live on his saxophone. If there really is music that could move God, there is no doubt that A love supreme contains a part of it.

Browse in the Library:

John Coltrane (short bio)

John Coltrane, (September 23, 1926, Hamlet, North Carolina, United States – July 17, 1967, New York, United States), was one of those few men, in art or otherwise, who are capable of make the revolution. With his sax he became one of the most important creators in the entire history of jazz. Coltrane had begun playing the sax while still a teenager and in 1943, his family moved to Philadelphia where he obtained a scholarship to study music. Upon his return from military service in Hawaii, – where he was part of a music band – Coltrane discovered bebop and in 1947 he joined Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson’s orchestra, where he discovered the possibilities of the tenor sax.

In 1949 he joined Dizzy Gillespie’s big orchestra as alto sax player, remaining there even when the band dissolved the following year with the tenor sax already on his lips. Between 1952 and 1954 he worked with several sideman musicians and it was not until September 1955 when the saxophonist contacted Miles Davis to be part of his quintet along with the pianist, Red Garland, the double bassist, Paul Chambers and the drummer Philly Joe Jones.

That same year he married his first wife, Juanita Grubss (Muslim name, Naima). His progress is evident in the September 1956 album “Round Midnight” for Columbia in the Miles quintet. His addiction to drugs worsens and Miles fires him from his group and the saxophonist takes the opportunity to move to Philadelphia with the intention of detoxifying from heroin and alcohol. In the spring of that year, he joined Thelonious Monk’s quartet, which performed at the Five Spot club in New York.

He returned with Miles Davis in 1958 and the following year they recorded the immortal album: “Kind of Blue.” From there, his career was meteoric and he signed a contract with the label, Atlantic and left two immeasurable albums: “Giant Steps” and “Coltrane Jazz.” The first becomes in its own right one of the summit albums of Hardbop.

He traveled to Europe for the first time in 1960 where he was received overwhelmingly. Upon his return he decides to form his own group. It is in 1960 and it is made up of the pianist, McCoy Tyner, the double bassist, Steve Davis, later replaced by the definitive one, Jimmy Garrison, and the drummer, Elvin Jones. The change to modal music began in October 1960 when he recorded the song: “My Favorite Things” and incorporated the soprano sax into his repertoire, an instrument that since the time of Sidney Bechet and with the exception of Steve Lacy, no one has used. had incorporated into modern jazz.

During this period he incorporated into his music an interest in folklores outside the European tradition: flamenco (Olé Coltrane), African music and rhythms (Dahomey Dance, Africa), Indian music (Aisha), etc. In many of these works appears the alto sax, bass clarinet and flutist, Eric Dolphy, who remained in his quartet from 1961 to March 1962 and from there a new project began with his signature for the Impulse label! where he records live from the Village Vanguard in New York, a series of absolutely great concerts.

He left again for Europe in 1963 and the following year he recorded an album (Crescent) that indicates the spiritual displacement in his music that later arrived with his album perhaps best known to the general public: “A Love Supreme.” A new twist to his music in 1965 with a more radical concept was inaugurated with the album “Ascensión” which marks his definitive affiliation to the “freejazz” movement.

John Coltrane changed his musicians depending on his new sound and his illness forced him to slow down his recordings, the most notable in his last years being another performance at the “Village Vanguard” and a tour of Japan. The last recordings from 1967 – including those that appeared after his death – give the impression that they were heading in a direction where the purity of the sound was the focus, but his death in 1967 as a result of a liver infection prevented him from achieving his great dream: visit Africa.