Customer Reviews
An Excellent, Informative Read 
2008-07-14
You KNOW the music. Now learn about the events in the life of John Coltrane that lead up to the pinnacle, the mountaintop of his career.
First of all, let me explain that I have a substantial library on jazz music - mostly about Miles and Trane. I found this book to be very insightful, regardless of what anyone else has written in their review. I don't want to be disrespectful of those reviews but I fail to see how some arrived at a mediocre or low opinion of this book. Not at all! In fact, I've learned so much and enjoyed this book so much that I'm definitely going to purchase Kahn's Making of Kind of Blue and Impulse the House That Trane Built. Personally, I can't wait to read 'em!
Kahn provides first hand accounts of both the December 9 & 10 sessions at Rudy Van Gelder's studio from Archie Shepp, Art Davis, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Bob Theil, and of course Rudy himself.
The book tells us what made recording at Rudy's so special, he describes the studio and even gives a high-level look at Van Gelder's methodology (the details are Rudy's closely guarded secret).
There is a title by title analysis of the suite in layman's terms but he & Ravi Coltrane DO give the listener some sign-posts to listen for each time you listen to the suite. I know that as a semi-professional jazz musician, I've learned new things about this music that I can actually apply to my own playing.
The description of how Impulse started, how they packaged and produced the recordings and took them to market was fascinating (to me anyway). I learned some things that I'd always wondered about. There is some discussion on Billboard and how the news about this fantastic work of art quickly spread 'round the USA.
There is a chapter toward the end "The Unbroken Arc of A Love Supreme" where I felt like Kahn was flirting with becoming trite and a little over-the-top but thankfully, he didn't quite go there... but it was close. That is my only criticism of this book. He just goes a little over-board with the reverence for this music, i.e., he sort of hits the reader over the head again and again with it. Ok, I get it. This is a special recording. Of course, we already KNOW that otherwise we wouldn't be reading a book devoted to a specific recording. Duh? It's not an annoyance but some reader may begin rolling their eyes, let's put it that way.
This book is perfect for the non-musician and a great read for musicians. The only downside (if you can call it that) for musicians is that there really isn't a detailed analysis of the music - no transcripts. If you are a musician you will want to purchase Lewis Porter's John Coltrane: His Life and Music. That book will give you transcripts galore. In fact, Porter is cited often in this book & this book is cited often in the Porter book. I enthusiastically recommend both books and of course, the deluxe edition of A Love Supreme. Buy them all, I guarantee whether you are a musician or just a jazz lover, you are going to learn something.
One More Session For A True Expressionist 2007-09-06
What can be said about this album?; on this book are mentioned details about this historic spiritual session that any music, jazz fan must indeed know. Read it and grow.
Great book! 2007-02-11
"A Love Supreme" was already one of my favourite jazz record before I read this, but after having read the book, now I listen to the music in a totally different way.
I'm not a spiritual or religious person at all, but the book helped me understand what was probably going through Coltrane's mind (from a spiritual point of view) when he composed and recorded "A Love Supreme".
Homage or Adulation? 
2005-10-14
Kahn's stellar research for this volume on Coltrane's best known album, "A Love Supreme," is undermined by sloppy prose and lack of focus. Kahn does a great job showing just how powerful the album has been for generations of listeners, from Wayne Shorter to Bono. The biographical material on Coltrane is very good, but profoundly impersonal, skipping over key aspects of his life. The best part of the book is his meticulous documentation of the December 9 & 10, 1964 sessions that resulted in this album. Kahn describes the music with vivid language, and includes details about where Elvin Jones' drums were placed and how Rudy Van Gelder lit the studio to create a Jazz Club atmosphere for the performers. After that, Kahn's book loses focus. It's as if he had a 100 page manuscript, but then the folks at Penguin asked him to make it 250, and he had scratch around for any extra material he could find. His assessment of Coltrane's career post-"A Love Supreme" is very tepid, and the chapter on the legacy of the recording, especially from the vantagepoint of JOWCOL publishing, shows promise, but ultimately goes nowhere. Kahn's major problem here is that he doesn't know who his audience is. Is it for die-hard Trane-iacs, or is it for the casual listener that has "A Love Supreme" and no other Coltrane album? Some of this might not be Kahn's fault, as the content suggests this is for experts, but the formating of the book, with its wide margins and coffee-table book size, make it seem as if it's simply for show and tell in some bourgeois apartment. The book could have been better organized, more historically contextual, and filled with glossaries and footnotes for the more casual fans. Also, Kahn's lack of historical grounding makes it seem as though "A Love Supreme" was the only album released in 1965, and that jazz was the most popular music at that time, which is far from the case (just as it is today). Here, his homage to this wonderful album bleeds over into the realm of adulation. If this was a book for the "experts," it would be more critical of the album, instead of an all-out gush-fest. But Kahn's research must be commended (especially since he seems to be responsible for getting the December 10th performance of "Acknowledgment," with Davis and Shepp as added musicians, unearthed and onto the Deluxe Edition reissue of "A Love Supreme).
This book is really good! 2005-03-31
Ashley Khan did a great job. I first picked up Coltrane's A Love Supreme, in the early 90's while a teenager, in a used section of a Parisian jazz record store, at that time i was only basicly educated about music and jazz. When i first played that album i was spiritualy moved and fell in love with it. I had no idea then of the importance of that record in Coltrane's career or in jazz in general, but the music touched my soul, and took me on a journey, which have been my (still young) life's journey and spiritual quest.
For the past 10 years i have been playing that record before evey major key events of my life... as a way to pray and meditate... i had no idea this album have been such a spiritual listening experience for other people before i started learning more about Coltrane and music. For this, Kahn's book is a very good illustration of the importance of that particular record. It is well written, have beautifull pictures and some precious informations. It contains basic elements about Coltrane's life, but reading Colrane's bio can remain a necessity. The making of a love supreme is a must read. Peace.
Loved it 2004-02-20
Few albums in the canon of popular music have had the influence, resonance, and endurance of John Coltrane's 1965 classic
A Love Supreme-a record that proved jazz was a fitting medium for spiritual exploration and for the expression of the sublime. Bringing the same fresh and engaging approach that characterized his critically acclaimed
Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece, Ashley Kahn tells the story of the genesis, creation, and aftermath of this classic recording. Featuring interviews with more than one hundred musicians, producers, friends, and family members; unpublished interviews with Coltrane and bassist Jimmy Garrison; and scores of never-before-seen photographs,
A Love Supreme balances biography, cultural context, and musical analysis in a passionate and revealing portrait.
A "companion " to the music 
2004-01-16
I'll try to keeep this simple because the editorial reviews and the various opinions expressed , most notably by Rich Fontana and one "ny metropolitan reader " are very good. I looked forward to reading this book when there was just the buzz about the author of "Kind of Blue" was writing a book on the Coltrane session for "A Love Supreme ; " unfortunately the hard cover price shut me out. When the paperback version came out I snatched it up and read it very quickly(an easy read) and was pleased but not overly impressed with it's content. The actual recording session was short so that probably accounts for so little about the actual recording. Most of the book is devoted to anecdotes, opinions by his son Ravi and other musicians, time shifting to different pivotal moments in Trane's career that relates "how" the sessions came to be. It is more of a mini biography and the cultural circumstances leading up to the recording. If you have read about Trane before there is very little new information but for any fan of Trane it is still entertaining and will undoubedtly get you to break out your "A Love Supreme " disc again. It is an interesting book because Trane presents an interesting subject. This is highly recommended if you are new to John Coltrane. The hand written original liner notes give deeper meanig to the words that would grace his recording.The photographs are very good, including some I've never seen that help recreate the portrait of the legendary jazz artist known as Trane . Any fan will enjoy the book and looking over the career and sessions that produced one of the all time jazz classics. Buy this book if you're a jazz fan but more importantly listen to "A Love Supreme"( and read the liner notes by J.C.) again and again.
Highly recommended for the uninitated 2003-06-10
But if you are a long time Coltrane fan, there is nothing new here. And the guy is not a musician, so expect the usual metaphores when trying to describe what is happening when Trane and company play. Since the actual master tape for the session runs a little over 60 minutes, there is not much to tell about the actual session itself, and many pages are devoted to where he was born, when he plays with Miles, what other people think about it (even that guy from the Byrds!) etc. But if you are just getting into jazz and into Trane, it is a good purchase. Good photos as well.
love it 2003-03-21
I loved this book. In fact I was just ordering a few extra copies to give as gifts to serious jazz connoisseurs when I came across this drivel from Rich Fontana in the customer reviews section. I felt that as a fan of both the album and the book, I am compelled to reply to his assiduously prepared critique.
In taking the author to task for being a fan, he misses the point of the book entirely: it is intended as a passionate celebration as much as carefully researched study. The author admits it unabashedly, Coltrane himself stated that an "emotional reaction" to music was paramount (in a '64 interview with Leonard Feather) and how else can one measure the effect and influence of a spiritual album without engaging the emotional?
As stated clearly by the author, and Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner - A Love Supreme was indeed a culmination of the quartet's three years together, not a culmination of Coltrane's career. Yes, Crescent was important and the author states that, even proposing it as an effective blueprint for the four-part suite that ALS is. Mr. Fontana's argument that his own perspective on Crescent is significantly different from the author's goes so far into the realm of picayune that - if it were deemed important enough to be published -- the vast majority of readers would end up scratching their heads and closing the book. (And while on the subject of hair-splitting, Crescent was recorded and released in 1964 - not 1963 - as Mr. Fontana maintains, an important matter in the hyper-charged Trane timeline.)
As to Kahn's use (another small matter apparently missed by someone who relishes detail: the author's name is K-A-H-N) of rock n' rollers (and minimalists, and world musicians) in gauging the reach and influence of ALS. One of the primary intentions of the book is OBVIOUSLY to show how Coltrane managed to transcend stylistic and categorical boundaries - and still does. In the same way the old Blindfold interviews in Down Beat - in which say, Coltrane would praise Lester Young, leading certain fans to ferret out and enjoy old Count Basie recordings - today's far-flung media allows a Carlos Santana oreven the dreaded Bono to help point their fans to the music of Coltrane
In the end, Mr. Fontana comes across as one who requires his music writing the same way: dry, analytical, single-minded. Jazz - and music in general - is NOT rocket science and should not be left to the cold, hard interpretation of one person (such as Mr. Fontana's own, opinion-as-fact portrayal of Coltrane's musical path.) In the virtual round-table Kahn has produced in this book, there is life and passion (and a helluva lot of great photographic images), powered by his own perceptions but mostly by the input of others: jazz musicians, jazz fans, even regular (G-d forbid -- non-jazz) listeners. He trusts his reader to figure it all out for him or herself, that somewhere among all those voices sits the general truth of music, Coltrane and A Love Supreme.
I applaud Ashley Kahn for making a very readable, authoritative book that exudes love and respect for its subject. This kind of writing will do more to breathe life into the jazz continuum than the boring tomes that more often pass for jazz writing. I can't wait to see what Kahn comes up with next.
More Love Than Light, But Worthwhile Nonetheless� 2003-03-19
Ashley Khan's A Love Supreme is a useful book and is a must read for both casual and serious jazz fans and followers of John Coltrane. Khan gives us an entertaining view of the events leading to and surrounding the recording of this famous and important album. But as was the case in his book on Kind of Blue, his lack of technical understanding of the music leads to misinterpretations and faulty conclusions, and sometimes has him sounding more like a fan than a historian or critic. As a saxophonist and pianist who has studied Coltrane's music since the sixties, I feel a few points need to be clarified.
A Love Supreme was a very important album, but much more so a spiritual statement of Coltrane as opposed to a musical statement. Coltrane had two powerful forces shaping him: his drive to explore new harmonic, rhythmic and modal territory, essentially bringing jazz up to date with the advances that had already occurred in modern classical music. At the same time, he was driven by a spiritual awakening and quest, and the two forces fused in what became a spiritual journey through music in his later years. This is why his later music is less intelligible to most of us: it mattered less as music, more as a spiritual statement for him. If you approach it simply as music, you probably won't get it.
A Love Supreme came along right at the nexus of these two forces, and serves as the signature of his expression of his spiritual quest in his music. Importantly, he chose an accessible format and presentation for it, making it very easy to grasp for his many fans, and for many who did not share an interest in the complexity that embodied so much of his musical search, or who may simply have been attracted to it by the spiritual nature of the album.
But as a musical statement, A Love Supreme is not as significant. Taken in the context of what came before it (the historic explorations of 1961, Crescent) and what came after it (John Coltrane Quartet Plays and Ascension) it is clearly just a way station. Throughout, the musical statement is notable in its simplicity: the four note motif of Acknowledgement, the single modulation and resolution of Resolution, the basic minor blues theme and structure of Pursuance. The ground covered in Psalm was much more effectively conveyed in Alabama on Coltrane Live at Birdland; Psalm is important more as a spiritual statement.
Khan overlooks the best clue as to the musical significance of A Love Supreme, hidden in Crescent's liner notes. In them, Coltrane states that he is looking for a new kind of form, one in which theme and variations are more integrally combined. I remember reading this for the first time 1963 and thinking what a difficult objective he had set for himself, one that he masterfully achieved in Crescent, and which he continued in A Love Supreme. It is a direction he could have kept following productively for a while, had he chosen to challenge himself musically in that way. But he didn't. Instead, he chose to fuse his musical and spiritual journey in A Love Supreme, eventually exploring a path that was ultimately a musical dead end and led to the breakup of the classic quartet. It's been reported that toward the end of his life he spoke of reintroducing structure to his music, and this would have been the ultimate experiment for a man whose musical life was defined by experiments.
But to say as Khan does that A Love Supreme was a musical culmination is simply not true, and an overstatement of its real significance. For a man of Coltrane's many gifts and directions, one musical culmination is not adequate. For the Coltrane who played within a harmonic framework, Crescent is probably the culmination: a fusion of theme and variation, harmonic complexity, emotional power. For the modal player, The John Coltrane Quartet Plays is the culmination. Here is the last frontier of modal playing in a format in which the soloist makes a statement, the drums keep time, the pianist plays related harmonies in tandem with the bass player linking the other three. (Indeed, Nature Boy gives us a hint of what's to come). The next stop is Ascension, in which Coltrane takes A Love Supreme one step further, loosening the harmonic and rhythmic constraints that would result in a statement that was spiritual first, musical second. (For the culmination of his free playing, my vote would be Ascension just for what it tried to do, though by its very nature, this type of music resists classification and comparison.)
Now none of this denigrates the importance of A Love Supreme: indeed, the album is pivotal in Coltrane's musical and spiritual journey. But it adds some nuance to Khan's portrayal, which is while very useful, uninformed on a musical level. I also don't think it matters what rock and roll players (except for Donald Fagen, who is really a jazz composer) thought of A Love Supreme: their musical contribution to the period doesn't merit a vote. They liked it, great. So what.
But faults aside, A Love Supreme is a book that all jazz fans should read, while they're listening to the transcendent gift to the human race that was John Coltrane.
