Issue 41: Don't Bother Me, I'm Thinking
By Medulla Vesuvius

Codifying the Sublime:
John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme – A Convergence

Every now and then, as an aesthete, you run across works of art that present themselves as somehow different from the average and mundane. These movies or photos or paintings or TV shows, etc. rise above and demand your attention. One such album that I’ve discovered within the last month or so is worth mentioning: John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.

This is music that is very hard to nail down. Is it jazz? Avant-garde? “Experimental?” The answer to all three is “yes.” Besides occupying several genres or maybe even because of its “living in the cracks,” this album resonates on three aesthetic pitches.

One, it’s pop music, but only in the sense that it made a blip on the youth cultural radar. I believe it was Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead who recounted hearing this music pouring out of several dormitory windows during a walk one night. It was 1964, an auspicious year, as it was also the year that a band called The Beatles exploded on America’s shores.

Two, it’s art music. I’m a trained musician with just enough theory knowledge to be dangerous and I can’t even fully comprehend all of the sounds being expelled by this quartet. Elvin Jones is far beyond merely “keeping time” on here, playing wild-man cymbals and floating in and out of regular drummer time-keeping roles, playing the gong and even tympani. It’s a bit cliche to say, but I think he really did conceive of his parts as another melody instrument. And McCoy Tyner on the piano…here’s one of the real sources of the musical ambiguity. I can make very little sense of what he’s doing, harmonically, which is no surprise. I get lost with the progressions in jazz after around 1945 or so. But what keeps me coming back as a listener is the fact that it’s obviously not random. There is some sense there, just beyond my perception. The two-handed chords are often hollow, giving Coltrane a lot of space. (By the way, if you ever want your little musical mind to be blown, listen to the syncopation in the left hand of a good jazz pianist like Tyner when he’s soloing.) This album is made up of four movements and by the third, the band is playing like insane geniuses. Coltrane’s all over the horn, Jones seemingly playing every drum and cymbal available. It’s so exciting and high-energy. Improvised. The sound of freedom.

“Freedom” is a fairly recent concept for me with regards to music. I remember listening to Dizzy Gillespie improvising one time, thinking to myself, “That must feel amazing to get up there on stage, blow your horn, no expectations, just improvising, playing whatever you feel while the rest of the band holds you up. There’s a lot of freedom in that. How liberating.” And it clicked for me. I could appreciate jazz improv. Not always understand it or even like it. But I could appreciate it.

Three, and most interesting to me, it’s spiritual, (not necessarily “religious”), music. After that great display of craziness and technique in the third movement and an upright bass solo by Jimmy Garrison to cleanse the palette, they come to the slow, reverent movement IV, the “Psalm.” Coltrane wrote the following poem and sang it, phrasing each separate line with his horn, (an astounding idea in itself):

A LOVE SUPREME

I will do all I can to be worthy of Thee O Lord.
It all has to do with it.
Thank you God.
Peace.
There is none other.
God is. It is so beautiful.

Thank you God. God is all.
Help us to resolve our fears and weaknesses.
Thank you God.
In You all things are possible.
We know. God made us so.
Keep your eye on God.
God is. He always was. He always will be.
No matter what . . . it is God.
He is gracious and merciful.
It is most important that I know Thee.
Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thoughts,

fears and emotions — time — all related . . .
all made from one . . . all made in one.
Blessed be His name.
Thought waves — heat waves — all vibrations —
all paths lead to God. Thank you God.
His way . . . it is so lovely . . . it is gracious.
It is merciful — thank you God.
One thought can produce millions of vibrations
and they all go back to God . . . everything does.
Thank you God.
Have no fear . . . believe . . . thank you God.
The universe has many wonders. God is all.
His way . . . it is so wonderful.
Thoughts — deeds — vibrations, etc.
They all go back to God and He cleanses all.
He is gracious and merciful . . . thank you God.
Glory to God . . . God is so alive.
God loves.
May I be acceptable in Thy sight.
We are all one in His grace.
The fact that we do exist is acknowledgement
of Thee O Lord.

Thank you God.
God will wash away all our tears . . .
He always has . . .
He always will.
Seek Him everyday. In all ways seek God everyday.
Let us sing all songs to God
To whom all praise is due . . . praise God.
No road is an easy one, but they all
go back to God.
With all we share God.

It is all with God.
It is all with Thee.
Obey the Lord.
Blessed is He.
We are from one thing . . . the will of God . . .
thank you God.
I have seen God — I have seen ungodly —
none can be greater — none can compare to God.

Thank you God.
He will remake us . . . He always has and He
always will.
It is true — blessed be His name — thank you God.
God breathes through us so completely . . .
so gently we hardly feel it . . . yet,
it is our everything.
Thank you God.
ELATION — ELEGANCE — EXALTATION —
All from God.
Thank you God. Amen.

JOHN COLTRANE — December, 1964

Coltrane is in full-on universalist mode here. If you’re a systematic theology-type of person, you’ll probably hate his writing. But if you’re into the fuzziness of the human soul and it’s response to a knowledge of God, then maybe you get as much out of it as I do. I think it was Ben Hecht or Steve Allen that interviewed Jack Kerouac about his “worship reflex,” his ability to be heartfelt and reverent toward God amidst his seeming worldliness, and I get the same vibe from Coltrane here, his worship reflex. To me, this is “praise and worship” music, if that category hadn’t been hideously co-opted by all manner of well-meaning Christian folks. Suffice it to say, though, that the “spiritual” component to this music, as unorthodox and unexpected as it is, really makes this record special.

As I see it, you have with this group, these songs, this preserved moment in time, this album — a convergence of three streams:

art.
	pop.
		spiritual.

Very Cool.