Oct 28 2012
Random Thoughts on “A Love Supreme,” and some Musicians Who Give It Their Own Voice
When talking about favorites in music, it’s best not to speak in absolutes. The listener changes over time. The music does, too. Everything changes. But when I ignore the mine field of absolutes and state that John Coltrane‘s A Love Supreme is my favorite Jazz album of all-time, it’s about as close to a certainty as I’ll ever get when it comes to this kind of thing.
I guess I just feel like shooting the breeze about it today. I don’t expect this column will be very focused, but whatever. It’s Sunday and Autumn outside and I feel like daydreaming.
God, there are so many reasons I love this album. Just from a music standpoint, the opening track of the four-part suite “Acknowledgement,” with that dramatic crash of tam-tam, followed by some cymbal washes, a phrase on bass, and then Coltrane’s opening salvo, it’s such a powerful statement that exudes spirituality and enticement for what’s to come. And then Coltrane’s potent mix of languid phrasing and fiery electricity, the album just takes off from there.
And the meaning I attribute to the album’s epic cycle of identity, conflict, pass through, and resolved contentment, it speaks to my own experiences in life just as, I’m sure, it spoke to Coltrane’s in his own way… And that transferability of individual personal meaning is one of the very best qualities of creative endeavors, as is the perfect malleability of the art to the unique vision we each possess.
I remember listening to this album in my car as I drove over the Rocky Mountains, feeling free and unencumbered by any of the problems that had been weighing upon me before I hit the road. I remember listening to this album on my iPod while walking along the Chicago lakefront, a park, colored leaves, and cars buzzing down Lake Shore Drive to my right, the choppy deep green waves of Lake Michigan to my left, the Drake Hotel, Hancock Tower, and Chicago skyline straight ahead, and seagulls soaring overhead while crossing a slate gray Midwest autumn sky. I remember apartment windows in many cities and A Love Supreme playing as I looked out a window at the town I was calling my home.
Just as this music is timeless, my experiences and memories are imbued with that same timeless quality when this album comes pouring out of my speakers, and I feel as young or old as I did at the time I recall listening to this album last. It’s a visceral experience the way a particular album can take me back in time (and, perhaps, forward in time, too), and A Love Supreme is especially useful in the art of time traveling.
For Coltrane, this was a spiritual album. I’m sure it was. In many ways, it’s a spiritual thing for me, too. And as I mention above, a wonderful quality of art is its malleability to the human experience, so whatever message or meaning of spirituality A Love Supreme was for John Coltrane, for me, it’s about transcending a static view of life, a mundane interface with time, and, instead, being cognizant of the series of miracles required just for me to possess the gift of being here, alive, and experience time as a holistic entity and not just a series of tiny victories and obliterating regrets.
It’s a powerful album, and it has a powerful effect on me. The best art does this, and this is as it should be.
So, anyways, thinking about this album as I was, I got curious and poked around the internet to search out some renditions of A Love Supreme recorded by modern jazz musicians, and thought I’d share them with you.
Let’s begin…
*****
ASA Trio
What I like about this version: I wouldn’t have imagined how A Love Supreme sounded via a guitar-organ trio, but ASA Trio took care of that problem for me. There’s a nice airy groove to the tune. It has plenty of the excitable energy of the original, but presents the composition with a free-floating hop and bounce, sort of releasing me from the spiritual heaviness. I like how ASA sort of separates out an aspect of Coltrane’s song and presents it in an entirely different light, without straying far at all from the original. There’s no mistaking this song for anything but Coltrane’s classic album, which makes the differentiation all the more admirable. Cool stuff.
Your album personnel: Agnar Már Magnússon (organ), Andrés Thor (guitar), and Scott McLemore (drums).
*****
Matthew Halsall
What I like about this version: It plays it close to the original, but voiced with a modern voice by a new generation of jazz artists. Nat Birchall, the man in the tenor sax position on this tune, has often had his sound (and his albums) compared to the sound of Coltrane. He has that mix of power and lyricism that embodied much of Coltrane’s playing. Matthew Halsall, a frequent collaborator of Birchall’s, brings his trumpet to the mix, an element not present on the Coltrane original. Not only does it make for an intriguing ingredient, this intrigue is enhanced by Halsall’s modal style (which often gets him compared to Miles Davis) and how he tries to fit it into Coltrane’s opening transition into the free jazz sound.
Your song personnel: Matthew Halsall (trumpet), Nat Birchall (tenor sax), Rachael Gladwin (harp), Adam Fairhall (piano), Gavin Barras (double bass), and Gaz Hughes (drums).
*****
Sam Newsome
What I like about this version. It’s pared way down, which allows me to focus on the original composition’s sonic qualities. While Coltrane could be surprisingly lyrical during moments of sheer force of will, there has always been an especial appeal in the way his sheets of sound wash over me… almost cleansing. Newsome’s version doesn’t have the same effect, instead emulating Coltrane’s sonic traits as focused blasts of notes, like blasts of tight air funnels, a percussive force that’s also calming in their way. Neat stuff. Found on his new release The Art of the Soprano Vol. 1.
Your song personnel: Sam Newsome (soprano sax).
*****
Wadada Leo Smith
What I like about this version: Pared down, serene, and inspired. From Smith’s album Kulture Jazz, he gets right to the heart of this song. The part that delights me most about this performance is that it’s not any way that I ever heard the song before in my own head or heart, but hearing this version makes me sit up and think, yes, subconsciously, I’ve connected with it this way before. Smith’s version feels very personal to me, as if I had come up with it myself and just never realized it. I think it’s beautiful when an artist can inspire that kind of connection with a listener.
Your song personnel: Wadada Leo Smith (bamboo llute, flugelhorn, harmonica, koto, maracas Mbira, percussion, trumpet, vocals).
*****
Lift
And this last track is by somebody who goes by the name of “Lift” on his Soundcloud page. He doesn’t give a name, only describes his music as “Guitar noodling from Armenia.”
He covers some other jazz tunes, too. And while I do find his rendition likable in its way, mostly I just love that he sat down and decided to play the song and hit the record button and share it with others on Soundcloud. I think that action speaks to the same thing that inspired me to make this post, about how much Coltrane’s A Love Supreme affects people, and the transitive nature of art, how one creation inspires more, ever outward.
That’s it.
Have a great Sunday.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks to Josh Maxey for pointing out that, coincidentally, A Love Supreme was recorded on December 9th, the same day that Bird is the Worm first opened for business.]
List your sidemen. I’m astounded by how difficult it is to discover who performed on a particular album. I go onto a nice tricked-out artist site, plenty of promo about the new release, but no mention of who performed on it and with what instruments. Do this. It’s important. Not only is it respectful to give credit to the people who helped create the album, but it also gives potential listeners/buyers additional insight into the music and whether to buy it. Perhaps knowing that a particular pianist or bassist appears on your album will be the tipping point to get them to purchase your album. Perhaps it’s knowing that bass clarinet is featured on your album. Also, in Jazz, many listeners use the sidemen as a way of discovering new music. Your music could lead to purchases of the music of your collaborators.
Link like crazy. Whether an artist has their own website or prefers simply going with a Bandcamp, Soundcloud, or Youtube presence, a problem with listeners/buyers finding your internet home is getting your site so it falls at or near the top of a Google search query on your name and/or album title. I can sympathize. Especially if you don’t have much of a following (yet) or, worse, you share the name of a popular athlete, politician, or celebrity. If you’re an unknown saxophonist whose name happens to be Bill Clinton, then there’s a good chance that anyone doing a search for your site is gonna get no less than ten pages of non-you results before even getting a whiff of your site.
Stream your music. Let people hear it. In a previous column, I talk about the value and rewards of streaming some or all of your album. You can read that article on BitW 
Update, please. This goes to artists and labels both… keep your sites up to date with new releases. It happens way too frequently that I see an intriguing new album pop up under a retail site’s new releases listing, the hop over to the artist site to discover that their site still only displays info on an album that was released years ago. And, then, I’ll go over to label site, and find that there’s no mention of the new release listed there either. Bad. That’s very bad. I don’t know what else to say about that.
Dec 9 2012
One Birthday Candle
One year ago today, I made my first post on Bird is the Worm.
It’s amazing to me that an entire year has passed, though the latent exhaustion I experience when looking back over the last year of BitW should be all the proof I need that the last 365 days didn’t exactly speed by quickly.
In this post, I’m going to talk about recollections of the past year in BitW, and then some things to look for in 2013. And since it’s Sunday, I’ll end with a video that I like.
Let’s begin…
So, I began this site knowing pretty much nothing. A very good friend, Bob Lewis, helped me with site hosting, downloaded the shell that eventually became my site appearance, and set up my BitW email account (thanks, Bob!). From there, I began toying with the appearance, adding widgets and plugins to add organization and functionality, and added ancillary items like the Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter pages. I began to learn about tagging, categories, seo, site security, and all the things one needs to learn to run their own site. I began dabbling in coding. I got pretty good at fixing my coding errors. I posted a bunch of articles.
I look back on some of those early posts. I want to modify many of them. Several of the things I do now, I didn’t do back then. I didn’t always explicitly list album personnel. Sometimes I overloaded the embedded audio. I didn’t add all musician names as search tags on the site. I was sloppier back then with article appearance. I look like someone trying to figure out the jazz-site-thing on the fly. And I was.
I made some intermittent journal entries in a spare file that I left in my site’s Draft folder. Here’s some things I wrote during my first month of BitW:
And another:
And there was. The thing of it is, I really enjoyed it. I still do. Even as I pulled out my hair and could feel myself aging as I hit submit/modify buttons and prayed that I didn’t crash my site, it was so much fun. The huge bursts of euphoria from the tiny victories (I added drop-down menus!) and the soul crushing defeats (I messed up my drop-down menus!) were an odd soup of excitement unlike anything I’d ever experienced before and quite intoxicating in its own peculiar way. And then there were the true achievements, like when I went into the site code and created custom taxonomies (with the help from an internet search or two) and then when I figured out on my own how to get those taxonomies to become searchable words and appear in a variety of menus. And, of course, the time I messed up the code on my Notes From The Holler site and completely disabled it… when I figured out how to FTP a new site shell onto my site to override the messed up one, managing to save all of my posts and maintain site functionality, well, I was flush with pride.
I’m proud to see that each month, BitW has received more site visitors than the month before. The only time this wasn’t true was June. I was out of town quite a bit in June, so wasn’t able to post much. However, the infrequent posting in June had more to do with a bad case of burn-out and an overpowering need to re-envision what my site was and how I wanted to present the content. It was worth it. Beginning in July and going forward, I feel like my reviews got better, more in-depth, and the format in which I delivered the content became more standardized (ie, placement & amount of embedded audio, linking procedures, tags & categories, timing of reviews, etc). I feel like BitW is a stronger site for the latter half of 2012, and that I was able to shake off some of those training wheels. I think I’m getting better.
Of course, I’m still figuring stuff out. My voice as a fiction writer is pretty well developed, but my voice as a music writer is still in the incubation period. Recently, however, I feel that I may be breaking free from my shell. I think I may be finally discovering how to bridge the gap between my fiction voice and my music voice. Part of the problem, as I see it, is that I never much cared for most jazz reviews. I grew up reading Nat Hentoff’s articles on civil liberties and jazz side-by-side. Every now and then, I encountered someone whose style strikes me as natural, as unique, as fun and enjoyable to read. But many album reviews aren’t very good, and I find that, in Jazz, they’re worse than other genres. But the thing is, I found the gravitational pull of the typical jazz review too difficult to resist, and much to my dismay, found myself writing in the same style, at times, of reviewer’s who I avoided and disliked. It was a struggle to break free from that while also attempting not to simply write like a fiction novelist. I caught between two poles, both drawing me closer to one another than I cared to stray. I think I’m getting better at finding my unique music writing voice, but I’m going to hold off making any definitive statement for at least another decade, maybe three. I hope you like where my style is going. My apologies for those reviews, along the way, that didn’t quite shake out how I’d have liked. I want to become the kind of music writer that you, and I, really enjoy reading, look forward to it, even. I think I’m getting better.
I’m barely keeping up with the workload. I had no idea the deluge of work that would come my way when I switched on the Open sign on BitW. I’ve had to organize and re-organize my process several times. My current system uses a combination of site system draft folder, email folder system, bookmark folders, and a large dry erase board. It’s that last thing that has been most helpful in getting my ducks in a row. But I’m still not very good at making timely reviews, answering emails, and various other forms of content & communication. My sincere apologies to all who have suffered me through this. I think I’m getting better.
Some things that haven’t quite taken off:
Brick & Mortar: I wanted to some features of various brick & mortar music stores in my area as well as ones from my past, maybe some venues that throw jazz shows. The plan was to talk about the store/venue, include some memories of experiences I’d had there, take some good photos, and get a short interview in with the owner and/or employees. It just never really developed. Mostly, though, this was a result of the scarcity of time. I’m still hopeful that this article series comes around in 2013.
Jazz in Kentucky: I published some articles on BitW with that tag, and then I began an entirely separate site called Notes From The Holler, which would focus on Jazz in Kentucky. I planned to cover shows, features venues, interview local artists, and write reviews of their albums. A lot of that happened, but not as much as I’d intended. Part of it was time and part of it was distance. I live far enough away from the Louisville jazz scene that I can’t be as actively involved in it as I’d intended. Some great jazz comes through Lexington, and that’s most of what I’ve covered. Nothing to speak of in Frankfort. Mostly I’m just trying to re-envision how Notes From The Holler will operate. Lately, I’ve begun thinking of trying to make Frankfort a viable tour stop between Nashville and Chicago/St.Louis/Indy/Cincy, and also create a network between Louisville, Frankfort, and Lexington that would allow musicians to make more than one tour stop in Kentucky, and thus a very short drive between paying gigs for a change. I’m in the very beginning stages of this. But I’m hopeful I can make this happen. I’m no less determined to make Notes for the Holler a mainstay of the Kentucky Jazz scene, and establish my presence here as a resource for musicians and fans alike.
Know Your Sideman: I still like this idea… to highlight artists who have always appeared in the small print of excellent albums, but never with their name in the large type. I only wrote one of these articles, but I’ve got one or two candidates to move on, possibly. The thing is, these articles take a lot of time. They involve multiple Tiny Reviews, an interview, and other content. This article series, if it continues, will be infrequent.
First Impressions: This was meant as a celebration of first listens… of the emotions and thoughts one gets in reaction to the first time an album is heard and that initial connection is made. I did one of these, for Threads Orchestra. I like the idea still, but just not sure it appropriate. I’ve actually modified this idea, and it will become a different theme in 2013 called “Hello, Subjectivity.”
Featured Crowdfunding Project: The intent was to highlight a monthly crowdfunding project that I liked. However, there seemed to be no interest or reaction to the various emails, tweets, and posts I made about it, so I’ve just scrapped this idea.
And now some thing to look forward to in 2013:
Something Different review series: I’ve already begun this series up, and intend to re-tag some older articles that would fit here, too. This review series will cover albums that don’t really sound like anything else. It will also cover albums that have no godly reason to expect any kind of commercial success. It will be a review series that rewards originality and risk, and it will put albums in the spotlight that incite awe and wonder from the sheer act of the artist’s creativity.
Interviews: I’ll be doing interviews. Pretty self-explanatory. I’m thinking I’d like to have two a month that are in-depth, then maybe also two a month (maybe four) that are a standardized short-interview set of questions. We’ll see how this goes.
Live Album review series: I’m going to begin reviewing albums which artists record from live performances and throw up on bandcamp or soundcloud or their own site. They’ll be short reviews, nothing terribly in-depth, but I think this kind of thing is a way that musicians can try to earn more revenues, either by selling the concert albums or by including them as a “bonus” album included free for purchasing a studio album. Or, maybe, neither of those, and the musicians just want to give the album away. However it shakes out, I’d like to highlight some of these albums. I’m also going to continue my NYOP review series, which reviews albums set at Name-Your-Own-Price. These are different times for music retail, and I want to reward the risk taken by the musicians adopting some of these new methods.
Mix of standard reviews and Tiny Reviews: I’m going to continue searching for the right balance of formal reviews and Tiny Reviews, and also keep searching for the right presentation of them. This won’t be new content, but an ever-evolving form of primary content.
The Two-Fer review series: I haven’t quite fleshed this one out yet. So far, I’ve done a couple, and each one had two album reviews for the same artist, but with a specific theme. I think it’s the Theme where I’ll take this review series. Two albums great for first thing in the morning, two albums for a snowy day, two albums for the end of a long week… that kind of thing. I think they’ll be fun.
Best of the New Era in Jazz: I’m thinking of doing one post a month for each of the last twelve years in Jazz, highlighting what I think are the best ten-twenty albums of that particular year. There’s no way that’s gonna be definitive, I know. But I’m hoping to provide some guidance. If I’d had this site running for the last ten years, it would be a much easier task. But I think I can present one post each month that covers a particular year. January’s post will cover 2012, February will cover 2011, March 2010, and so on. This could fall apart on me pretty quick if it turns out I’m not able to bring this goal into the fold, but even if I don’t do one post a month on this theme, I think I can just continue at my own pace and get there in the end. I’m hoping to stir up some discussion on this topic… the best Jazz of the New Millennium. I think a consensus can be reached among those of us who have been following modern jazz in-depth. It would be helpful, and I think people would appreciate that guidance. Otherwise, if we leave it up to the Grammys to guide people to modern jazz, that’ll leave people with a whole bunch of fuck-all to run with. We need to provide a legitimate option. I’d like to do my part. I’d like to say, hey, you’re looking to discover some modern jazz… well, here’s some good places to start. It’s a modest goal that could provide a massive benefit.
Concert/Festival Reviews: I do some of that now. I’m looking to do more of it, and I’m looking to do some road trips and cover more than just Kentucky.
New About Me Page: Before the year is out, I’ll be posting a new About Me page. It will include some extra information about what I do on the site, types of items I’m looking for, timelines for expecting to see results, odds of my actually reviewing something an artist submits, and information on how to have a Featured Album, how to advertise, how to donate to the cause, and some general areas in which I’d be open to collaboration with other sites.
*****
So here we are…
I’ve probably forgotten to mention a few things above. A few things I’m keeping to myself for the time being. I’ll add thoughts and comments along the way. That’s just how these things go sometimes.
A sincere thanks and well-wishes to everyone I’ve encountered along the way. Thank you to everyone who subscribes to my site via email and/or RSS Feed. Thanks to everyone who comments here on articles. Thanks to everyone who has submitted to my Tumblr page and everyone who follows it and/or has had kind words about it. Thanks to everyone who Likes my Facebook page, Follows me on Twitter, and who links to Bird is the Worm on their own site. And again, thanks to Bob Lewis for all the tech advice and help along the way. Many times I tried to learn to fly after jumping off a cliff, which really gave me a lasting start on a self-education in running a site, but it was always nice to know that I could ask Bob a question as I hurtled down to Earth while still trying to figure out exactly what a line of code in my PHP file meant or what exactly that damn error code was trying to tell me. Most of all, thanks to my wife, Kate, for allowing me the enormous amount of time that keeping a site like this entails, as well as her support via the occasional shot in the arm of confidence, and the occasional urgent coaxing to make a post or else.
And, of course, thanks for all the music.
Cheers.
Like this:
By davesumner • Announcement - Site & General, Introduction, Other Writing • 4 • Tags: Anniversary Day, Hey