Live Concert Review – 50th Anniversary, “A Love Supreme” – SF Jazz Center (Dec. 12, 2014)

Recorded in the Englewood Cliffs studio of Rudy Van Gelder (Charles Mingus, never one to mince words, once referred to the pioneering producer as “that New Jersey dentist’’), the record sold over 500,000 copies, astonishing for a jazz release, and influenced everyone from Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead to Carlos Santana, Roger McGuinn, who credited it with inspiring “Eight Miles High’’ and even, as the late blues historian Robert Palmer noted, the Allman Brothers’ extended jams.

Introduced in brief remarks, by SF Jazz Executive Director Randall Kline and Ashley Kahn, author of  “A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album’’ and a previous volume on the making of “Kind of Blue,’’ the multiple events honoring Coltrane’s work was put together at SFJAZZ with the blessing of Ravi Coltrane, the tenor great’s son, whose group played a rousing set in his father’s honor.

The session was opened by the Turtle Island String Quartet, the experimental group led by David Balakrishnan, who paid homage to the four “food groups’’ of modern music – jazz, Indian, classical and bluegrass, stressed the improvisational nature of their performance, joking that the players only looked stressed when they were reading the charts, but let loose when they had the chance to react spontaneously to one another, in the jazz spirit.

Longtime collaborators Balakrishnan and cellist Mark Summer were joined by relative newbies, violinist Mateusz Smoczyni and violist Benjamin von Gutzet, performing Coltrane compositions like the beautiful ballad “Naima’’ and “Moment’s Notice’’ before launching into an inspired homage to “Love Supreme’’ – their 2007 recording of the classic won them a Grammy, an honor the great saxophonist himself only won posthumously, for Best Jazz Solo Performance (“Bye Bye Blackbird’’) in 1982 and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

Balakrishnan said that, taken together, he  considered the four movements of the masterpiece – “Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance and Psalm’’ to be on a par with the great works of Beethoven and Bach – and he could have easily added Bartok to the list.  The group put in an amazing performance.

After the intermission, Ravi’s quartet came back and put in a tasty set, including a rendition of his father’s ballad, “Alabama’’ before putting their stamp on the supreme sounds of the classic which was being honored.  The shimmering syncopations of drummer Johnathan Blake were particularly notable, giving the ghost of Elvin Jones a run for his money and bassis Dezron Douglas’ solos were equally eloquent. At the conclusion, the obviously emotionally spent group, led by Ravi Coltrane, took a bow, their arms around each other. It was a moment.

Coltrane was a man, not a god – although there is a Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church still extant in San Francisco. I think it’s best to see his work in that context. Although he composed “Love Supreme’’ after a harrowing descent into addiction, and a spiritual awakening that he credited with saving his life, the religiosity that sometimes accompanies the appreciation of his work – thankfully missing at the SF JAZZ event – does him no favors. I think his early album of “Ballads,’’ particularly his version of  “Nancy (With The Laughing Face’’), and his collaborations with Miles Davis, Johnny Hartman and Duke Ellington are every bit as memorable as “A Love Supreme,’’ if sometimes less celebrated. And “My Favorite Things,’’ recorded in 1961, will stand the test of time immemorial. I can’t find the exact quote  (Google has failed, for once), but as I recall, when asked by a self-appointed hipster why he would pick a “corny’’ standard by Rodgers and Hammerstein to cover, Coltrane, with typical modesty, was said to reply: “I liked it.” No snobs need apply – his love supreme extended to all of god and man’s creations.

sfjazz.org

ravicoltrane.com

turtleislandquartet.com