By Ron Wynn
NASHVILLE, TN — Over the last couple of years outstanding previously unreleased LPs of John Coltrane have been unearthed in different places. The latest example of that concerns a live version of the music many consider the greatest Coltrane ever recorded. That’s “A Love Supreme.” Until now it was widely assumed that there was only one live recording of “A Love Supreme.” It was recorded in July 1965 at a festival in Antibes, France, but never released until 2002.
However various collectors, critics and historians were aware that “A Love Supreme” was played live in its entirety on at least one other occasion. That was on October 2, 1965, during a weeklong residency at the Penthouse in Seattle. What either wasn’t known or just overlooked was the fact Joe Brazil, a Seattle-based saxophonist, educator, and good friend of Coltrane’s, had recorded this performance using the club’s house gear: two microphones and an Ampex reel-to-reel tape machine. After the show, Brazil took the tapes and stored them in his personal archive, where they remained for the next five decades. Their existence was only discovered well after Brazil’s death in 2008.
Some 13 years later, the results of that will finally be heard on October 8. That’s the date that Impulse will release “A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle.” Unlike the Antibes performance, which featured the Coltrane quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones, the Seattle version expands the group to include tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, alto saxophonist Carlos Ward, and second bassist Donald “Rafael” Garrett. Its closing piece, “Psalm,” can now be heard in part online via WBGO.org. and some other places online.
This gives jazz fans the opportunity to hear a different version of an unquestioned classic.
