Fascinating, well-written piece. Thanks for sharing! I plan to revisit it more closely when I free up (probably while listening to A Love Supreme -- arguably the greatest jazz album of all time).
Just finished listening to it yesterday! My first time with it, excellent stuff, but not topping Mingus Ah Um! I've been on a Jazz kick since listening to an episode of Kirk Hamilton's Strong Songs podcast about John Williams[1]—which was an excellent listen and I learned tons—that touched on Jazz and Mingus in particular.
I, unarguably, agree. My all time favorite part is "Psalm". Love the story behind it, too: They had just moved from the city to Long Island, and he said it came fully formed into his mind. He then spent days and days in solitude intensely teasing it out to perfection.
A Love Supreme is a wonderful album, but Ascension and his later avant-garde work marked a new direction in jazz. Listening to Coltrane play his later work, feels to me like he had unshackled himself from the past, from the changes, and was his most pure expression of self.
Without more prominent melody or harmony I could not find what is finer about it than conventional approaches to jazz. Could you please elaborate on what its quality is?
To be honest, I am not a jazz musician or even a jazz fan. When I do record music I have better progress when holding myself to a standard or a set of limitations to work within. It gets the brain going to find new solutions to fit within a self-imposed framework.
1: https://strongsongspodcast.com/blogs/episodes/s05e05-john-wi...