The record John Coltrane prayed in four parts

John Coltrane's first life in music almost ended early. Heroin cost him his chair in Miles Davis's great quintet in 1957. He came back clean before the year was out, played with Thelonious Monk, made Giant Steps, and built a quartet of his own: McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, Elvin Jones on drums. He believed his talent came from a higher power. This record is his acknowledgement.

He recorded it in one session, on December 9, 1964, at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, with Bob Thiele producing for Impulse!. It came out in January 1965, and it is a suite in four parts: Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance, and Psalm.

It opens with a gong and a four-note bass figure. Coltrane plays that figure every way he can, until the notes turn into words: he sings "a love supreme" himself, nineteen times, layered over his own voice. The last part, Psalm, has no singing at all. The liner notes carry a poem he wrote, and he plays the poem on the tenor instead of speaking it, down to the last line: "Elation. Elegance. Exaltation. All from God. Thank you God. Amen."

The next day he tried other versions, with saxophonist Archie Shepp and a second bassist. He chose the quartet take with the chant. He was right: by 1970 the record had sold about half a million copies, where his usual records sold thirty thousand. Pitchfork later gave it a perfect ten, and a church in San Francisco treats this record as its central text.

Listen along

Every track this story mentions, playable right here:

Watch the film

Our film tells the story of this record, prayer by prayer. Watch it on YouTube:

Where it leads: six years later, Alice Coltrane recorded Journey in Satchidananda in their house in Dix Hills, with Pharoah Sanders on it. That story is Deep Listen No. 1. His pianist McCoy Tyner made Sahara in 1972. Both records are in our free guide, and this one is page one.

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