ELATION-ELEGANCE-EXALTATION

John Coltrane 'Pt. IV - Psalm' (A Love Supreme - 1965)

On researching this entry on A Love Supreme, I tried to establish if it was the 34th album by John Coltrane or not? Does that include live records? What about dual credits on record labels he was signed to? Records released after his contract expired with that label? Who can tell? Wikipedia has a total of 45 studio albums and ten live ones. There is a vast discography before considering the appearances on classic albums by Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk.

This album was recorded in Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey just before Christmas 1964. By Christmas 1967, Coltrane would be dead from liver cancer. Biographers and writers have speculated that the cause of Coltrane's illness was hepatitis, but some also point to struggles with “the needle and the bottle” years earlier as the root cause. I mention this as in 1957, Coltrane had a spiritual awakening that helped him conquer his demons of addiction that had plagued him for almost a decade.

In the liner notes to A Love Supreme, Coltrane wrote;

…by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music."

The closing track of the album, which I really should get to after all this preamble, is Part IV: "Psalm", and, much like the whole album, it was influenced by this religious experience. It is the shortest piece on the record at just over seven minutes, remarkably, and Lewis Porter describes it as a “wordless recitation”. This is where Coltrane plays his saxophone as if he were saying the words of the devotional poem included in the liner notes. If you look at the video below, you can see how the terms of the verse line up with his playing.

These points move us toward thinking that whether Coltrane played the poem through his instrument or recited it as words were two sides of the same coin.

Indeed, he also says in the liner notes.

Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thoughts, fears and emotions—time—all related... all made from one

‘Psalm’ is an elegant, thoughtful and humble tribute to spiritual enlightenment after the three previous suites focus on the search and discovery. It showcases the classic quartet pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones synthesising all that they worked on in the run-up to this record’s 33 minutes and also, like some of our favourite tracks we have covered here, points the way to the more experimental nature of the last few recordings of Coltrane’s life.