Coltrane smokes a pipe while taking a break from recording “A Love Supreme” at Van Gelder Studios, Dec. 1964. Photo by Chuck Stewart.
By Matt Silver
1963 chronicled a version of Coltrane’s Classic Quartet navigating between at least two worlds — the highwater mark of the group’s avant-garde experimentations, as heard on 1961’s "Live" at the Village Vanguard and Impressions, and 1962’s tidal recession to the more, shall we say, accessible repertoire of Ballads and the eponymously titled collaboration with Duke Ellington. It's a split-the-baby-in-two type scenario: you’ve got more adventurous sessions at Birdland as the year’s bookends — and, sandwiched between, the velvety lyrical decadence of Trane’s collaboration with Johnny Hartman AND six months of gigs with a substitute drummer, Roy Haynes, who filled in admirably for Elvin Jones, most memorably at 1963’s Newport Jazz Festival.
In 1964, there’s less vacillation, more incantation. Less compromise; more contemplation. Less soul searching; more satisfaction. More grounding and even more gratitude.
And more happiness. In Coltrane’s career, but also in his life more generally.