John Coltrane Plays the Only Live Performance of A Love Supreme (1965)

John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme came out in 1964, an “album-long hymn of praise,” writes Rolling Stone, “tran­scen­dent music per­fect for the high point of the civ­il rights move­ment” as well as Coltrane’s grow­ing spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing after kick­ing his hero­in habit. The record amazed crit­ics and jazz fans alike and by 1970, it had sold over half-a-mil­lion copies. But lovers of Coltrane would only have only one chance to see him per­form the full four-part suite live, and not in any state­side clubs but in Antibes, France on July 26, 1965, where he played two nights with his quar­tet.

You can see twelve of those mirac­u­lous min­utes above, con­sist­ing of the first two move­ments of the suite, “Acknowl­edge­ment” and “Res­o­lu­tion.” This is a gor­geous per­for­mance, cap­tur­ing what sax­o­phon­ist David Lieb­man describes as “an end and a new musi­cal begin­ning” for Coltrane.

The sec­ond evening’s per­for­mance, below, begins with “Naima,” on which, Lieb­man says, “Trane solos com­bin­ing a strik­ing lyri­cal approach off­set by mul­ti-not­ed, dense­ly packed runs.” If you’ve ever won­dered what Ira Gitler meant in describ­ing Coltrane’s style as “sheets of sound,” these per­for­mances will clear up the mys­tery.

The mid-six­ties was a piv­otal time for jazz—before the elec­tron­ic fusion exper­i­ments to come, as hard bop and free jazz com­bined with the dis­so­nance of ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry con­tem­po­rary clas­si­cal music, which had “per­me­at­ed jazz for at least a hand­ful of artists.”  Coltrane still spoke the “com­mon language”—the “stan­dard reper­toire stem­ming from the Amer­i­can song book and/or orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions with sim­i­lar and pre­dictable har­mon­ic move­ment,” yet in his case, he “added modal­i­ty to the mix,” a trick picked up from Miles Davis.

Coltrane sad­ly died from liv­er can­cer in 1967 at age 40 and did not live to see the strange, sur­pris­ing turns jazz would take in the decade to come. How his brash, yet enchant­i­ng play­ing would have trans­lat­ed in the 70s is anyone’s guess. Yet, like so many artists who die young and in their prime, he left us with a body of work almost mys­ti­cal in its inten­si­ty and beauty—so much so that his more reli­gious fol­low­ers made him a saint after his death. Watch­ing these too-brief record­ings above, it’s not hard to see why.

The sec­ond night’s per­for­mances from the Antibes Jazz Fes­ti­val were issued as a live album in 1988. The first night’s live show­case of A Love Supreme has seen sev­er­al releas­es, and if you’re one of those who pro­fess­es devo­tion to this amaz­ing piece of work, you’d do well to pick up a copy, if you don’t own one already. “The inten­si­ty if the Antibes live per­for­mance,” writes Lieb­man in his 2011 lin­er notes to the Jazz Icons/Mosaic release of the Coltrane Live at Antibes 1965 DVD, “far exceeds the stu­dio record­ing” of the album. And that’s say­ing some­thing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Coltrane’s Hand­writ­ten Out­line for His Mas­ter­piece A Love Supreme

Watch John Coltrane and His Great Quin­tet Play ‘My Favorite Things’ (1961)

The World Accord­ing to John Coltrane: His Life & Music Revealed in Heart­felt 1990 Doc­u­men­tary

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness