A Love Supreme, since its release 59 years ago, has been an album as religion: To bend your ear to its might is to bend your soul – your being too. As perfect an album that exists – though John Coltrane probably never believed in true perfection – it stands as one of recorded music’s greatest achievements.
But the Love Supreme story exists outside just the bounds of the four songs on the album: Coltrane attempted to record the album twice – first with a quartet, then with a sextet. The six-piece iteration managed to get through one song after a few takes before Coltrane decided he liked the four-piece better. He only played the album live in full three times, and only two of those were recorded. The sextet, and the live takes, and some alternate mono mixes and outtakes from the quartet, are the extended gospels of the main album.
All that music that represents the full A Love Supreme experience has never been released together on vinyl. Until now.
The VMP Edition of A Love Supreme is an 8-LP set that collects the proper album, all of the outtakes from the quartet session, mono mixes from the finished album, the full sextet sessions, and two live performances – one in Antibes, France, the other in Seattle, Washington, – together on vinyl. It’s a box set devoted to a single album.
Remastered from the highest quality sources available – AAA on the main album, some digital from the outtakes and live versions, due to tape degradation – the VMP Edition comes remastered and cut by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound, and will be plated and pressed by Gary Salstrom at Vinyl Media Pressing in Denver, Colorado later this spring.
The box itself is a beautiful custom box designed by Alan Hynes and Clay Conder, engineered in a way to reflect the distinctive cover of the album. Befitting the alternate material, each of the five “albums” within the box – the proper album, the outtakes, the sextet session, and the France and Seattle shows – come in a gatefold package that echoes the original art. VMP worked closely with the estate of the artist behind the original album release – Victor Kalin – to locate alternate art made around the time he made the version that appeared in A Love Supreme to fill the gatefolds of these alternate editions. Hynes also subtly re-imagined the cover to reflect the material on each “album” within the VMP Edition, whilst paying reverence to the beloved original cover design, making this a true collector’s item that will speak to the Coltrane converted, and to people just making their way into his church.
The VMP Edition also features an expansive Listening Notes book from music writer Jeff Weiss, who had this to say about the album in his essay:
“In Coltrane, the musician, we are reminded of the regenerative power of originality, reinvention, and sacrifice for art. Zealot or atheist, A Love Supreme holds endless non-denominational wonders. And in this time where creativity’s manifestations seem fleeting, disposable even, we can listen back to someone who strove to convey meaning with every exhale. If something like this existed once, it can again. If John Coltrane saw what he saw and heard what he heard, that is just enough reason to still believe.”
The booklet is filled with Coltrane photos, and the box also comes with Coltrane ephemera that includes a prayer card and printed manuscripts and notes from the creation of the album.
Expected to ship in the summer of 2024, this first edition is strictly limited to 1000 units.
