Lewis Porter's Deep Dive into "A Love Supreme"

Here's a terrific article: A Deep Dive Into John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" by His Biographer, Lewis Porter (Pt. 1), on the WBGO website. Porter gives some historical background to the recording, describing Coltrane's desire to record a full-album work, a "spiritual manifesto, his most personal statement," and how it was initially almost rejected by his record company, Impulse!, as not commercial enough.

Using Coltrane's written notes (his score is reproduced in the article) and considering outtakes from the recording sessions, Porter describes the planned structure and development of Coltrane's four-movement suite.

Porter covers more interesting musical details than I could summarize here, but one thing I'll note is the original intended instrumentation: tenor saxophone, "one other horn," piano, drum set, 2 basses, 2 congas, and "timbali" (Coltrane may have meant "timpani" - which Elvin Jones does play at one point in the recording). For the "other horn," Coltrane brought in Archie Shepp, but the part Archie recorded was ultimately not used. Likewise, Art Davis participated as a second bassist, but according to Wikipedia, his part was also not used in the final production.

The only time I ever heard Coltrane play live was 1966, about two years after "A Love Supreme" was recorded. It was a life-changing experience; here's a post with my recollections. The instrumentation that night was expanded, in a way similar to Coltrane's original "A Love Supreme" concept: Elvin Jones and Rashied Ali, drums; Juno Lewis, percussion; Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, tenors; Alice Coltrane, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; and Donald Garrett, bass and bass clarinet.

Here's a quote from Coltrane's score, that describes the way he intended to end the album: 

"To Ending - Make ending - Attempt to reach transcendent level with orchestra - rising harmonies to a level of blissful stability at end."

I'm looking forward to Part 2 of Porter's Deep Dive.

The "Groovin' High" family of II V's

In a number of classic bebop melodies, and in classic recorded solos as well, you'll hear examples of what I'll call the "Groovin' High" family of II V licks. The common feature of these licks is the use of a chromatic line from the root of the II chord, descending by half steps, to the third of the V chord. 

Here's an example from Dizzy Gillespie's 1945 composition "Groovin' High" (transposed here to the key of C). This II V phrase incorporates and embellishes the chromatic line D, C#, C, B, as indicated by the arrows:

Here's another example from the head to Charlie Parker's "Billie's Bounce," also from 1945 (transposed to C). Again, note the line D, C#, C, B:

Another well-known tune that uses this line is Sonny Rollins' 1956 blues "Tenor Madness" (transposed to C):

To understand where this chromatic line comes from, consider the example below. The "active ingredient" in any II V is the motion of the seventh of the II chord (C) dropping to become the third of the V chord (B). No other notes need to change when changing chords. The notes D and F are common to both Dm7 and G7, and the note A can stay, to become the ninth of the G7.

basic voice leading for II V in C

In the G7, B is the most important note, as it is the leading tone that is providing tension, trying to resolve up a half step to the root of the I chord (C, C6, Cmaj7, etc.) that normally would follow.

The example below shows an elaboration of this voice leading, adding a chromatic line starting on D. The line implies the chords shown here, though the melodic line does not really need to have the support of these exact chords.

with descending passing tones added

This voice-leading line can be further elaborated to create II V patterns like the ones below. Chords might be shown (or played) as in the example above, or as in the first example below, but more often are just squared off to one per measure, as in the other two examples:

Charlie Parker was unquestionably aware of this II V device. Below are some excerpts from melodies and solos in the Charlie Parker Omnibook, Vol. 1 (Eb edition). Coincidentally, these are all in the key of G:

from "Confirmation" head (the D7 notes use a
#9 b9 (F and Eb) rather than a normal third (F#)

from "Anthropology" head (I'd have shown the first measure as Am7)

from "Anthropology" solo (likewise)

from "Bloomdido" solo (Charlie is displacing the implied harmony a bit)

from "Blues (Fast)"

I chose to call this device the "Groovin' High" family of II V's because that tune and "Billie's Bounce" are the earliest jazz examples I could find, both from 1945. I have no doubt that jazz pianists had figured this out earlier, and I'm sure that plenty of similar melodic and harmonic examples can be found in the classical repertoire. One possible earlier jazz use could be Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight," in the chord changes at the beginning of the A section. Monk may have written this tune in the 1930s. But there's no way of knowing if he was harmonizing it the same way then as he did in later recordings. 

If any readers know of earlier examples in the jazz repertoire, or in Great American Songbook tunes of the 20s -30s, please leave a comment!

(Erratum: In the example labelled “with descending passing tones added,” the first chord symbol should of course be Dm, not D)