What's on from 18-23 October

Gig filter Monday 18 October Ari Hoenig trio, The Yard, Manchester Tuesday 19 Oct Speakers Corner Quartet, Barbican, London Jas Kayser, 606 Wednesday 20 Oct Dominic Lash quartet + Consorts, Cafe Oto, London Vula Viel, Justham Family Room & Jane …

Published: 18 Oct 2021. Updated: 2 years.

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle, Impulse ***

Made at Seattle’s Penthouse club on 2 October 1965 and like The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording equally problematic for its very sketchy sound quality this belongs more in a university archive to be studied by scholars and assessed mainly …

Published: 18 Oct 2021. Updated: 2 years.

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Made at Seattle’s Penthouse club on 2 October 1965 and like The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording equally problematic for its very sketchy sound quality this belongs more in a university archive to be studied by scholars and assessed mainly for historical and musicological factors and venerated as such.

The 1971 Live in Seattle release by the way recorded days earlier in the same venue is far, far better and one of Coltrane's greatest so go straight there if interested in this period. And in terms of posthumous releases in recent decades Impulse 2005 release Live at the Half Note: One Down, One Up is much, much finer as too is Resonance's 2014 release Offering: Live at Temple University.

The performance here was recorded by saxophonist Joe Brazil (who played flute on Trane's Om) and the recording was only discovered after Brazil died. It is remarkable that it exists at all. But the audio needs a lot more restoration work on it if that is even remotely possible. The Antibes ''A Love Supreme'' live version is far better if you are making a choice. But draw close as John Coltrane still means everything to millions of jazz fans the world over and we still have not even got to the stage when mainstream culture embraces his late work in the same way as it has long since absorbed the music of Miles Davis. What that tipping point will be who knows but to be going on with it's not this.

But more than this and what on earth can we expect? There is only one A Love Supreme, the greatest jazz album in existence, and that was recorded on 9 December 1964 not in Seattle but in Rudy Van Gelder's in Englewood, New Jersey and released in early-65. That occasion was unrepeatable whether in the studio or in all pertinence live. SG