Disc Two comes from a variety of sources. The live version of A Love Supreme has been released on several occasions, with varying sonic results. In mastering the first legitimate issue of the quartet's only live performance of the suite, Van Gelder worked with an excellent analog transfer from the original mono tape made by French national radio.The result is one disc containing the very best version of the original Love Supreme possible, and another containing not just one of its rare live performances (at the 1965 Festival Mondial du Jazz Antibes, in Juan-les-pins, France), but alternate takes of "Resolution" and "Acknowledgement", featuring not just Coltrane, but Archie Shepp on saxophone, and in a unique double-bass experiment, Coltrane's usual upright bass player Jimmy Garrison shares the studio with bassist Art Davis.
Frankly, I'm not sure how much I like Shepp's playing on these tunes. It may just be that I've got 20 years invested in hearing A Love Supreme a particular way, and that no other way will do. Or that Coltrane is such a monster sax player on his own, that no other saxophonist can accompany him. But that's a minor point--Coltrane was a tireless experimenter, who in the last years of life, was willing to share the bandstand with increasing numbers of musicians. And his experiments with Shepp and Davis presage those jam sessions.
The bottom line: This is the best presentation yet of one of jazz's best albums, and the perfect accompaniment to Kahn's making-of book. If you're new to the Coltrane legend (or even if you're not), then (to paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke), read the book, play the CD, repeat the dosage.
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