John Coltrane - Tenor & Soprano Saxophone, Flute, Producer
Eric Dolphy - Bass clarinet
Alice Coltrane - Piano
McCoy Tyner - Piano
Jimmy Garrison - Bass
Reggie Workman - Bass
Rashied Ali - Drums
Roy Haynes - Drums
Elvin Jones - Drums
Bob Thiele - Producer
Richard Seidel - Compilation producer
Recorded at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; The
Village Vanguard, New York, New York between November 3, 1961 and March
7, 1967. Includes liner notes by Alice Coltrane. All tracks have ben
digitally remastered.
John Coltrane's plaintive tenor saxophone tone and total engagement
with his material could make any slow ballad sound like a prayer, so
this set of nominally devotional numbers (recorded between 1961 and
'67) doesn't shed any new light on his art. But it holds your
attention, even if Coltrane's holy numbers tend to be slow or stately
as hymns (if sometimes catchier: "Dear Lord" could pass for some
unjustly forgotten ballad). The first movement of A Love Supreme was an
inevitable choice, for Coltrane and bassist Jimmy Garrison's
mantra-like repetitions, and for the saxophonist's speaking-in-tongues
falsetto. (Garrison, the only sideman who appears on all tracks, is the
CD's secret hero, whether adding punchy beats to the bottom end or
flamenco-strumming through an intro.) On Coltrane's albums or gigs,
spirituals often functioned as change-ups, a chance to catch one's
breath before the next fast or frenetic number. They still sound most
striking in relief, but assembled in one place, their power accumulates.
Kevin Whitehead, Amazon.com
Anyone who's ever listened to John Coltrane's most impassioned music
can sense that playing jazz was more than just a vocation for him. In
his most earnest work, Coltrane sounds as if he's attempting to tap
into a force beyond our worldly one. Some of his most passionate
recordings in this vein are brought together here, on a collection that
acts mainly as an introduction to the great saxophonist's work of the
early and mid-Sixties. The selections are well-picked, if a bit
arbitrary in that their titles seem to give the most obvious clues to
their "spiritual" nature. "Dear Lord," "Song of Praise," "Spiritual,"
"Wise One," "A Love Supreme" (Part One-Acknowledgement)" are all
impressive and heartfelt performances, but the same could be said for
many pieces of this same period with more prosaic titles. Nonetheless
you can't go wrong with Impulse! Records-era Coltrane:simply put, this
is some of the most inspiring jazz ever recorded.
Steve Futterman, Barnes & Noble
In the standard process of reissue/repackage, Impluse! put together an
eight-track compilation of John Coltrane numbers together under the
Spiritual title and theme. The job must have seemed pretty easy since
just about everything he recorded for the label could be considered in
the spiritual order. The real problem, therefore, became deciding which
pieces to leave off the compilation as opposed to which ones to
include. There are certainly some beautiful works here: "Song of
Praise" (an odd but delightful choice) and "Dear Lord" typify this
compilation -- in fact there's not a dud in the group.