John Coltrane: A Love Supreme Deluxe Edition

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * * *)

Jazz critics are stubborn but agree on one thing: this 1964 album by saxophonist Coltrane is a classic.

Coltrane laid down the template for jazz into the present day with his 'sheets of sound' approach and inventive style. He could take a song from The Sound of Music (famously My Favourite Things) or Mary Poppins(Chim Chim Cheree) and turn it into a thing of densely probing spiritual beauty.

This album was his watershed and for newcomers is the ideal intro because after this his journey became more demanding and singular.

This reissue in the Deluxe Edition series, with a fat booklet of brief and relevant essays, comes with an extra disc of alternate takes, the only live performances of his spiritual suite (in Antibes), and a sextet version of the opening section Acknowledgment with Archie Shepp on tenor. Essential, and not just for jazz lovers.

Label: Impulse!/Universal