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Branford Marsalis
Coltrane's A Love Supreme Live in Amsterdam
(Marsalis Music/Rounder)
First Appeared in The Music Box, February 2005, Volume 12, #2
Written by John Metzger
In 1964, John Coltrane wrote and recorded A Love Supreme, a four-part
song cycle that not only was the pinnacle of his extraordinary career, but also
remains one of the most important and influential works by any artist,
regardless of genre. It’s not that the suite is overly complex — its structure
is remarkably simple — but such raw emotion and intense spirituality poured
through the music delivered by the saxophonist along with the musicians that
surrounded him (pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones, and bass player Jimmy
Garrison) that the piece became something far greater, something far more
profound. So perfect is A Love Supreme that Coltrane himself performed it
only once — at the Antibes Jazz Festival in the summer of 1965 — and it remains
so daunting an undertaking that, in the years that followed, scant few others
have attempted to reinterpret it.
That makes Branford Marsalis’ recent DVD/CD combo platter Coltrane’s A
Love Supreme Live in Amsterdam a rather gutsy endeavor. For the record, this
isn’t Marsalis’ first attempt at re-imagining Coltrane’s greatest achievement,
but it is, by far, his most realized as well as his most successful gambit.
Where many would approach the piece from a purely egotistical perspective —
thereby missing the point entirely — Marsalis took a different tact, coming to
it from a position of absolute love, devotion, and respect while also
surrendering to its spiritual rapture. His initial forays, not surprisingly,
were reverential, but with each reiteration of the suite, he and his ensemble
moved forward ever so steadily until they discovered the key that unlocked the
composition, allowing them to take control of it and bend it to their will.
Recorded on March 30, 2003 at Holland’s Bimhuis Jazz Club, Coltrane’s A
Love Supreme Live in Amsterdam is the culmination of Marsalis’ journey, and
it highlights just how attuned to the original recording that his quartet has
become. Without a doubt, there are wisps of Coltrane, Tyner, Jones, and
Garrison’s performance buried within the music created by their counterparts in
the Branford Marsalis Quartet, but it all was delivered in voices that are
unique to saxophonist Marsalis, pianist Joey Calderazzo, drummer Jeff "Tain"
Watts, and bass player Eric Revis. Instead of utilizing Coltrane’s composition
as an explicit roadmap, the ensemble dug deeper, extracted its primal essence,
and painted a more abstract, but no less recognizable, portrait. In other words,
the musicians didn’t stop at simply playing the music; they actually felt it and
permitted it to course through their veins. In the process, they transformed the
piece into something that remained true to Coltrane’s original vision without
sounding like a mere replica. Marsalis alludes to this concept during the
interview segments packaged as bonus material on the DVD, but while it’s one
thing to discuss theoretically the notion of unearthing some hidden intangible
aspect, it’s a completely different matter to achieve it in actuality.
Indeed, it’s astounding not only to hear how the Branford Marsalis Quartet
accomplished this feat with such organic grace, but also to witness how the
group’s members became swept away by the emotion of their collective
performance. Together, they fully explored the dynamics of A Love Supreme,
vigorously attacking the fiery moments and quietly finding the breathtaking
beauty within the more delicate ones. Through Watts’ mad-dash rhythms darted
Marsalis’ sweet, searching, and soulful sax; Calderazzo’s nimble, butterfly
flights; and Revis’ earthy bass patterns, and the end result was a startlingly
brilliant and magnificently intense religious experience that becomes all the
more powerful when one is submersed within the swirling sensations of the DVD’s
surround sound audio mix. Augmented by an informative dialogue between Marsalis
and Alice Coltrane; snippets of the Branford Marsalis Quartet’s pre-show,
post-show, and backstage banter; and a series of interviews with the band and
other jazz musicians about the composition; Coltrane’s A Love Supreme Live in
Amsterdam is, quite assuredly, the preeminent statement of Branford
Marsalis’ already distinguished career. While it understandably is impossible
for this to be a definitive interpretation of Coltrane’s epic masterpiece, it’s
about as close to that lofty position as one could ever hope to get. 
Coltrane's A Love Supreme Live in Amsterdam is available
from Amazon. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
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For UK orders, please
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2005
The Music Box
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