Description
John Coltrane – A Love Supreme Live In Seattle – Compact Disc
Tri-fold digisleeve. Comes with a 24 page booklet with liner notes, essays and additional artwork.
John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle is a historic live recording released in October 2021 by Impulse! Records, documenting a full performance of A Love Supreme from October 2, 1965 at The Penthouse in Seattle. For decades, it was believed that Coltrane had only performed the suite live once (at the Antibes Jazz Festival in France in July 1965). The discovery of this Seattle tape significantly reshaped that understanding.
The recording captures Coltrane with an expanded ensemble rather than his classic quartet alone. Alongside McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums), the performance features additional musicians including Pharoah Sanders (tenor saxophone), Carlos Ward (alto saxophone), Donald Garrett (bass clarinet), and a second bassist, Jimmy Garrison remaining central. The enlarged lineup reflects Coltrane’s shift during 1965 toward a more open, spiritually intense, and avant-garde direction.
Unlike the concise, tightly structured 1964 studio version, the Seattle performance stretches to nearly 75 minutes, expanding each movement—“Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance,” and “Psalm”—into extended, exploratory improvisations. The music is denser and more turbulent, with multiple horns creating layered textures and heightened collective energy. It offers insight into how Coltrane was evolving beyond modal clarity into freer forms of expression.
The recording quality, while sourced from a club tape, was carefully restored, preserving both the raw atmosphere of the venue and the clarity of Coltrane’s saxophone tone. The intensity of the performance underscores the spiritual and devotional core of A Love Supreme, but through a looser, more communal lens than the meditative studio original.
For Coltrane scholars and listeners, A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle is a major archival discovery. It bridges the gap between the classic quartet era and the more avant-garde period that followed, revealing how one of jazz’s most important works transformed in live performance.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
Track Listing
A Love Supreme, Pt. I – Acknowledgement
Interlude 1
A Love Supreme, Pt. II – Resolution
Interlude 2
A Love Supreme, Pt. III – Pursuance
Interlude 3
Interlude 4
A Love Supreme, Pt. IV – Psalm
