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**Frownland** · 07-22-2017, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

I would say this, A Love Supreme (as Frown said), Giant Steps, and Ascension are most frequently cited as his best work. He also played on Davis' Kind of Blue which, obviously, is very highly praised.

The best case for My Favorite Things is he kept building on it obsessively throughout his career. Every sound he ever made is sacred.

Can't forget Sun Ship. Or any of his other albums.

Anyway, I read this article recently and this is as good a place as any to post it, it really reflects the perfection of Coltrane: The Story Of 'A Love Supreme' : NPR

Quote:

Lewis Porter heads the masters program in jazz history and research at Rutgers University-Newark. He's the author of John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Porter says that simple idea culminating in the first movement with an unprecedented verbal chant by Coltrane forms the foundation of the entire suite. It's a theme Coltrane consciously uses in subtle and careful ways throughout A Love Supreme. For example, toward the end of part one, "Acknowledgement," Coltrane plays the riff in every key.

"Coltrane's more or less finished his improvisation, and he just starts playing the 'Love Supreme' motif, but he changes the key another time, another time, another time. This is something very unusual. It's not the way he usually improvises. It's not really improvised. It's something that he's doing. And if you actually follow it through, he ends up playing this little 'Love Supreme' theme in all 12 possible keys," says Porter. "To me, he's giving you a message here. First of all, he's introduced the idea. He's experimented with it. He's improvised with it with great intensity. Now he's saying it's everywhere. It's in all 12 keys. Anywhere you look, you're going to find this 'Love Supreme.' He's showing you that in a very conscious way on his saxophone. So to me, he's really very carefully thought about how he wants to present the idea."