Check out Frank Catalano’s new album: A Love Supreme Collective. The record offers a fresh acid jazz take
on John Coltrane’s landmark recording, A Love
Supreme. What strikes me most about this release is how it extends the
narrative that Coltrane helped create. A Love Supreme was Coltrane’s crossover hit that broke him into the counterculture mainstream. Coltrane served the
role of a musical shaman between the physical and spirit worlds. A Love Supreme
encouraged artists to take musical risks influencing the musical philosophy of
the fathers of the modern jamband scene such as The Allman Brothers, Grateful
Dead and Bruce Hampton etc.
A Love Supreme Collective builds off of the celebrated mythology of A Love Supreme. The record weaves wild driving free jazz drums and chaotic frenzied Coltrane tenor runs with a soundscape of repetitive electronic samples. The timing of the recording feels just right. A Love Supreme has continued to echo in the realms of popular culture whether it is sandwiched in between medleys at a Santana show or alluded to in an epic Phish jam like the 6-3-11 Down with Disease at Pine Knob. Catalano’s contribution fits nicely in what is becoming its own subgenre.
