The Impact of John Coltrane’s Album: A Love Supreme

A Love Supreme Album

This album was created mainly by John Coltrane with the help of his group: Jimmy Garrison (bass), McCoy Tyner (pianist), and Elvin Jones (drummer). Many listeners referenced this album as a musical narration, it’s as if he was telling a story with musical sounds instead of actual words. This specifically occurred most in the Psalm part of his album. His album consisted of four parts: Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance & Psalm in that order. In Psalm he played the words of a poem using a saxophone instead of words, some saw this piece as paying respect to sermons within the African-American Church. He portrayed spiritual representation using jazz by telling musical stories about his addiction, how his spirituality helped him grow from that, and his journey in general with his spirituality. In this way we can see the impact spirituality had on his album, especially since he referred to his album as a “Thank You to God.” Below is the fourth piece of his album, “Psalm.”