A Love Supreme or Blue Train?

As someone fairly new to jazz I just can't seem to get into Coltrane. I just put on the Love Supreme SACD (Impluse) and didn't make it past the first song. Before that I listened to Cannonball Adderley's Know What I Mean? SACD and find that style much more enjoyable. Right now I'm listening to the Jimmy Cobb Quartet's Jazz In The Key Of Blue SACD and find this title very enjoyable as well. I guess maybe it is the way Coltrane plays that I do not enjoy or get. Maybe I'm in the minority here but as always music and its enjoyment is personal a preference.

Bill

 

You are listening to two different jazz styles, hard bop (Cannonball Adderley's Know What I Mean?) and avant-garde/free jazz (John Coltrane's A Love Supreme). Hard bop is much easier on the ears for most people, though sometimes it can get formulaic.

 

Hans,

Thanks for the explanation for the jazz newbie .

Bill

 

Resolution from A Love Supreme is as good as it gets, imho.

 

x2

I voted for Blue Train but I also prefer Giant Steps over pretty much anything else in Coltrane's catalog. I also really like Bags and Trane but I have a soft spot for Milt Jackson and that probably puts a thumb on the scale.

 

Blue Train, no question

 

Blue Train - my favorite Coltrane.

 

I agree with both of those.

My Favourite Things has the haunting modality of A Love Supreme but is less experimental and I find John Coltrane's wonderful takes on those classic standards more resonant and musically interesting than his own compositions on ALS. Giant Steps like Blue Train is in Coltrane's more traditional hard bop style which I prefer to his later freer, avant-garde stuff as it has more elaborate compositions and thus more intricate and IMO more interesting improvisations (his solo on Giant Steps is among the seven wonders of jazz), plus there's more of them than on Blue Train (seven on Giant Steps to Blue Train's five), not least including one of Trane's most beautiful ballads, Naima.

BTW, I voted for Blue Train, but it was pretty close.

 

I chose A Love Supreme because I prefer John Coltrane in his Quartet setting and this album is them at their best.