John Coltrane: A Love Supreme [deluxe]

I like an excuse to have a good binge, and the complementary releases of Ashley Kahn's book about the making of the album and of this 'deluxe' two-CD release gave me an ideal opportunity. Also I had a semi-professional interest in how the two worked together. Here's something I wrote in 2004:

A couple of months ago I wrote about how I was enjoying Ashley Kahn's book A Love Supreme: the Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album. Since then I've heard two sets of radio documentaries on A Love Supreme — one 30-minute BBC Radio 4 feature by Jez Nelson, and a four-programme series by Courtney Pine on BBC Radio 2 — both featuring extensive contributions from Kahn, and relying on his narrative.

This looks like a fairly close synergy between two paid-for items — Kahn's book and the recently issued deluxe two-CD reissue of Coltrane's album — and the free-to-air broadcast medium. Everybody stands to win from this, and because the copyright owners have realised this, they've co-operated to make good, cost-effective radio and promote sales of back-catalogue recordings and a relatively new book.

If the existing documentaries in the BBC archive were available under a Creative Commons licence, this kind of thing could happen more regularly without depending on the concerted efforts of publishers and record labels — though the labels would still stand to benefit from sales of their back-catalogue, as envisaged in the long tail hypothesis about niche markets.

The book publishers and record label must have worked closely together for this: obviously the book promotes sales of the albums, but the CD notes cite the book extensively and favourably. I used to wonder why book publishers and record labels didn't collaborate like this more often. Having now done business with the former, and remote contact with the latter, I'm less surprised.

The notes to the CD bang on about how the tapes used for this release don't have the imperfections that marred all previous CD releases of the album, but they don't mention the noticeable glitches that remain (or appear for the first time). There's a nasty bit of pre-echo just as the sax comes in at the start of Resolution, and the level of hiss varies considerably.

How much value is the second CD, comprising the sole live performance of the album in Antibes, France, in 1965, plus the outtakes from the second recording session (just day after the first, definitive one) that featured Archie Shepp as well? Well, the live bit doesn't do much for me. You get a longer drum solo and an extended bass solo. See what I mean? The 10 December 1964 recordings are interesting, however, especially if you're a fan of Shepp or Coltrane's later work (though the source tapes are clearly quite badly decayed at some points). One of the alternative takes of Acknowledgement has an intro that sounds distinctly more black, for example. You enjoy them more if you read the book as well, and you certainly enjoy the book more if you have this extra CD.

One way and another, Ashley Kahn must have made a few bob out of his work. I mentioned the multiple documentaries to someone at the BBC a while ago, and they just rolled their eyes and said that kind of thing happens all the time. Often the commissioners and producers don't know that another BBC network is thinking along similar lines to them until they see the public listings. But Mr Kahn must have smiled at receiving money from both left and right hand of the Beeb, as well as (presumably) from Universal Music Group and his publishers.

I'd be interested in your view, as a historian, on his work. He provides pictures of his sources, from the handwritten covers of the session tapes to the records of which musicians got paid how much for each session. Perhaps it's sentimentality on my part — the album was conceived in 1964 and released in 1965, just like I was — but I don't feel it's a cynical exercise to sell more of the old records once again to the same long-suffering suckers fans. There's real substance to the book (along with the unlikely elevation of Rudy Van Gelder to mythical super-hero status as a recording engineer); I don't think fans will feel short-changed; and I look forward to further imaginative collaborations like this.

You can see in my 2004 comments that I anticipated Chris "Long Tail" Anderson's ideas for his next book. Yet, with hindsight, my optimism about ventures like the Kahn-Universal one seems naïve. This treatment will remain resolutely niche, reserved for a handful of 'classics' from the 'canon', and won't rescue many long-lost recordings from the long tail of low sales. I can't see Kahn, or anyone else, giving Crescent the same treatment — though I wish they would.

MusicBrainz entry for disc 1, disc 2 Wikipedia entry for this album Rate Your Music entry for this album Listen to disc 2 of this album in full at Last.fm