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Irish Examiner
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Culture That Made Me: Tony Sheehan of Triskel in Cork picks his touchstones
Tony Sheehan, 62, grew up in Youghal, Co Cork. His arts administration career includes over 10 years' service as director of the Fire Station Artists' Studios in Dublin. He served as arts advisor to the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, and was part of the Cork 2005: European Capital of Culture programme team. In 2006, he was appointed artistic director of Triskel Arts Centre. He's a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. See: Kind of Blue My granduncle, Thady O'Shea, who lived in Knockadoon, East Cork, was a noted box player. Another granduncle made his living as a jazz saxophonist in England in the 1950s. My father and grandfather were founding members of St Mary's Brass & Reed Band. I luckily got an introduction to Miles Davis's Kind of Blue at an early age. Most young fellas were listening to AC/DC and Queen at the time. I had this other secret world going on with jazz music. It was no problem because music – and brass instruments – was in us as a family. The Cure at the Arcadia I remember going to see The Cure at the Arcadia Ballroom in Cork in 1981. What was most memorable about it was that wash of almost trance-like, complex harmonies they did; that, big hair and Cork accents. For some reason, I was transported by The Cure, but I was brought back to Cork fairly fast. Floating along, and the next thing you'd have someone in earshot going, 'C'mere to me!' ' London Calling An album that defined my teenage years was The Clash's London Calling. It was something special. I was knocking around aimlessly for most of the 1980s because Charlie Haughey's Ireland had no options for us. You either emigrated or became an artist because you might as well. Everybody was on the dole. London Calling spoke to the anger that young people felt. It's an iconic album for that time. Shortwave radio I've always loved shortwave radio stations like the BBC World Service, foreign language stations operating in Europe and English-language Chinese radio stations. Interestingly, there was a young, brilliant solo pianist Fionnuala Moynihan who played the Chopin Nocturnes at Triskel last March. When I was a kid in 1981, I used to listen to Radio Warsaw in Poland every night at midnight to the Chopin concert they'd broadcast, including the night when martial law was declared. The broadcast stopped. The next voice you heard was the military saying they'd now taken over. Then everything went dead. Paco Peña My dad was a factory worker in a Kilkenny textile mill. The guys running it were Belgian. They had no clue about the arts or music, but they were asked by the Kilkenny Arts Festival committee to sponsor a concert. So, a manager called my father from the factory floor, and said, 'You're a guitarist. Who would you like to bring to the Kilkenny Arts Festival?' He didn't hesitate: 'Paco Peña.' And so, one of the world's most famous guitarists played Kilkenny courtesy of a man who made his living in a textile factory but had a love of music that was unsurpassed. McCoy Tyner and Charlie Haden The Jazz Festival for Cork Capital of Culture 2005 is a landmark jazz festival. People still remember it because Cork's European Capital of Culture team supported bringing McCoy Tyner and Charlie Haden, those two legendary American artists, to Cork for it. I got to introduce them from the stage. Charlie and McCoy are pillars of the history of jazz. I'll never forget it. They were on the same bill. 'You want Capital of Culture? We'll give you Capital of Culture.' John Berger John Berger with Marisa Camino at the Vanguard Gallery in Cork in 2005. Picture: Cillian Kelly John Berger is one of the most influential twentieth century art critics. He made Ways of Seeing for the BBC in 1972. It influenced generations of us. John came to Cork for the Capital of Culture. He had this searing integrity, clarity of thinking and an ability to express complex thoughts. An example is his book The Success and Failure of Picasso. He said he wrote the book to keep Picasso company – that Picasso was now this completely isolated giant of visual art. John didn't pull punches in the book, which annoyed Picasso. Brian Friel When you think about Brian Friel's play Making History and his commentary about war, it brings to mind the war in the Ukraine. If you draw the two together – Queen Elizabeth is Putin; O'Neill is Zelensky, the other guy. There are all these parallels. Some of his plays aren't easy, some are dense historical works, but Brian Friel is our Shakespeare. Translations and Philadelphia, Here I Come! are still some of my favourite plays. John Potter Triskel Christchurch was launched with a full performance of a work called Being Dufay, composed by Ambrose Field. It's about the early music of a composer. It's sung by the tenor John Potter. It's a work for electronics and voice. It's extraordinary. John came to international acclaim years before. He always produces these creative partnerships and ideas that are captivating. He opened up a rich vein of music for me, especially with ECM records. John and Ambrose, when they performed Being Dufray, set the tone for the kind of music Triskel would excel at – beautiful music done to the highest of standards, something we aspire to all the time. Denis Conway Denis Conway. Denis Conway is one of our best actors, probably the most passionate actor I know. He does nothing by halves. It's his commitment as an actor that I've always admired. He loves Cork, and he has a complicated relationship with Cork [laughs] like we all do, but the actor who I think of when I think about theatre is Denis Conway. Kazuo Ishiguro Kazuo Ishiguro is my favourite novelist. I've always loved science fiction. As a kid, I was a big fan of Philip K Dick. Ishiguro is a contemporary development of his sensibility. Fans know there's often a conflict in sci-fi between what's regarded as literature and pulp. Ishiguro crosses that divide. The books are gripping. They're beautiful and poignant. They envelop you in something. Even if it's dark, every word is so finely tuned. His book Klara and the Sun is just poetry. Patrick McCabe A writer I love is Patrick McCabe. What a guy. The Butcher Boy is incredible. Patrick McCabe also has a particular sensibility around music that I enjoy. He has that unhinged view of the world, or it's not that he has it, but he's able to completely internalise seriously unhinged stuff, complete lunacy, that makes reading his novels this incredible adventure.
Scotsman
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Previously unheard recordings of jazz legend Miles Davis to be heard in festival play premiere
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... A play about the life of jazz legend Miles Davis and featuring previously unheard tracks is to be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after winning a funding award. Miles, which details the life of the American musician, based on his own autobiography and describes the musician as 'pimp, addict, genius', is the winner of the Meadows Award for underrepresented artists of colour. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The production, which details the "chaos" of the making of a Kind of Blue, the bestselling jazz album of all time, will receive cash to fund a full run at Summerhall. Presented by theatre company :DELIRIUM: and Lauren Reed Productions, the play will see acclaimed jazz trumpet player, Jay Phelps perform alongside an actor representing Miles. Mr Phelps, who has performed at London jazz club Ronnie Scott's and the BBC Proms, has recently been touring Kind of Blue in various venues across the country with his band. Described as a 'hypnotic, smoke-laced fever dream', the story of Mr Davis' life is said to be 'a visceral journey into the soul of an artist who redefined modern music'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Miles Davis Quintent, Hammersmith, London, 1967. Artist Brian Foskett. (Photo by National Jazz Archive/Heritage Images via Getty Images) | National Jazz Archive/Heritage I Creative director Oliver Kaderbhai, who was resident director for the UK tour of hit musical Hamilton, said: 'As a mixed-race theatre maker of Anglo-Indian descent, I am curious about identity - what drives people to do the things they do. We're interested in humanity under pressure. 'Miles was a complex man and we're going to explore how he became the creative genius we know today - how did his race, his circumstances, his upbringing impact his choices? And would we have been a different Miles if he existed today?' Summerhall Arts, the new charity heading arts and culture provision at the venue for the next three years, said: 'Summerhall is proud to support MILES. through the Meadows Award, a production that embodies the bold, necessary, and artistically rich storytelling we believe deserves to take centre stage. We are committed to making space for Artists of Colour at the Fringe and thrilled to see MILES. lead that vision.' International work makes up more than half this year's Fringe Summerhall this week announced its line-up for this year's Fringe, which includes over 50 per cent international work, with artists from countries such as Singapore, Brazil, New Zealand, and the USA. It features a 50 per cent female-led line up, with 20 per cent of shows created by artists of colour and 25 per cent including LGBTQ+ narratives. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Highlights include Skye: A Thriller, written by Ellie Keel. Set on the Isle of Skye, follows a group of siblings confronting the reappearance of their deceased father. Earlier this year, a financial crisis at Summerhall was averted after a winding up order over alleged unpaid tax was abandoned. Summerhall's management announced that HMRC had dropped a legal action that led to its bank accounts being frozen. A public consultation is being launched into the future of the building, which has operated as an arts hub for 14 years. Developer AMA recently said it wanted to include residential properties in its redevelopment of the venue, as well as commercial space and a 'facility to sustainably continue the provision of the arts'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Summerhall Arts Fringe producer and programmer, Tom Forster, said: 'As promised back in January, our 2025 Fringe performance programme continues to be exactly what we know and love. It's the same beating heart - consisting of colleagues old and new - but underneath brand-new skin, an approach that denotes quality not quantity.' MILES. premieres at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Tech Cube Zero at Summerhall,
Vogue
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
12 Friends of Vogue Curate a 'Superfine' Playlist for the Met Gala 2025
Tonight, on the first Monday in May, some of the brightest stars from the worlds of fashion and culture (and much more besides) will be walking the red carpet for the 2025 Met Gala. But what will they be listening to while getting ready? Thankfully, we have just the solution. Inspired by the theme of this year's exhibition, 'Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,' which examines the rich history and legacy of Black style—with a particular focus on dandies from across the centuries—we asked 12 friends of Vogue to recommend the perfect soundtrack to a big night out ahead. From Miles Davis to Rihanna, here (and on Spotify) find the ultimate getting-ready mixtape for the 2025 Met Gala. 'Joromi,' Victor Uwaifo Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche 'There is no genre more quintessentially West African than High Life; this song is a pioneer classic and I love its indulgently nostalgic beauty.' Kind of Blue, Miles Davis Dapper Dan 'The entire Kind of Blue album by Miles Davis. It is the all time greatest jazz record. It's not only the music, but Davis himself. He's always translating sound, and while the concept of dandyism never changes, the way it's translated does.' 'Back On 74,' Jungle Edvin Thompson, Theophilio 'It captures a sense of revival and confidence stepping into your power with rhythm, grace, and unapologetic flair. The energy feels perfectly in sync with the bold spirit of the Met.' 'Movement 1,' Pharoah Sanders, Floating Points, and the London Symphony Orchestra Rachel Scott, Diotima 'Drawn from the body of Sanders' final work, it feels at once historical and modern, powerful yet tender. Its nuance and complexity, to me, embody the elegance of the Dandy' 'L.O.V.E.,' Nat King Cole; 'Do U Lie,' Prince; 'My Jamaican Guy,' Grace Jones; 'Mas, Que Nada!' Jorge Ben Jor Regina King 'Songs that I feel evoke the dandy vibe include: 'L.O.V.E.' by Nat King Cole, 'Do U Lie' by Prince (and pretty much the entire Parade album), 'My Jamaican Guy' by Grace Jones, and 'Mas Que Nada' by Jorge Ben Jor.' 'Three Piece Suit and Thing,' Trinity Nicholas Daley 'My chosen song has to be 'Three Piece Suit' by Trinity, released in 1975. My parents played this record in the 1970s when they ran one of Scotland's earliest reggae club nights. It is such an anthem and the way the lyrics describe each part of the look, details and the attitude behind looking sharp. The LP album cover artwork is also so iconic and has been an inspiration within my collections. My grandfather was part of the Windrush generation and had such a sharp tailored style with his trilby hat, so this song is a dedication to him!' 'Mr Bojangles,' Sammy Davis Jr. IB Kamara 'Sammy, for me, was a Black dandy, within the tradition of dandyism that includes heroes of mine such as Miles Davis, Sam Cooke, and Louis Armstrong, among so many others.' 'Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You),' UGK (Underground Kingz) Torishéju Dumi 'This song just makes me feel so alive, present and hopeful. It just makes me so happy.' 'Bitch Better Have My Money,' Rihanna Erdem Moralıoğlu 'Rihanna, dressed in tailored trousers—not a gown—stomping on the main table of the 2015 Met Gala singing 'Bitch Better Have My Money' felt rebellious and bold. And in the trousers, very much 'tailored for you.'' 'Young Forever,' Jay-Z & Mr. Hudson Dynasty Ogun, L'Enchanteur 'Creating legacy that surpasses lifetimes. Remaining present throughout time and space.' 'Good Thoughts Bad Thoughts,' Funkadelic Soull Ogun, L'Enchanteur 'It feels like a mantra, a practice that realigns my thinking and the way we can view the world with a deeper and birds eye's lens simultaneously.'
Time Out Abu Dhabi
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out Abu Dhabi
The Jazz Club by QC in Abu Dhabi
Not every night out in Abu Dhabi needs to be a high-energy affair. Sometimes, the best evenings are the ones spent tucked away in a cosy corner, sipping a well-made mocktail while jazz music softly fills the airwaves. The Jazz Club by QC, hidden behind a curtain in Al Raha Beach, offers just that. Consider it a secret little world where music, coffee and delicious desserts take centre stage. Step inside and it feels like you've travelled to a different era – the 70s, to be exact. The maroon-draped curtains give way to an intimate space bathed in a warm, moody light, where plush velvet couches invite you to sink in and stay awhile. (Credit: The Jazz Club by QC) The walls pay homage to jazz greats, their portraits watching over the room as a traditional record player crackles in the background. It's a space built for just around 20 people – a small but intentional crowd, creating an atmosphere that's cosy, exclusive and effortlessly cool. The story behind it? It all started when The Jazz Club's founder, Sulaiman Alalawi, was brewing coffee for his future in-laws, filling his home with the scent of oud and, almost by accident, stumbling upon Miles Davis' Kind of Blue record. That first encounter with jazz was unexpected, even a little strange, but the emotional connection stuck. Now, years later, that passion for music and coffee shapes this under-the-radar Abu Dhabi spot. While the venue is known for its impeccable coffee and creative mocktails (the Herbie's funk is a must-try), desserts are where the real magic happens. Take 'the moon' – a stunning grey, cratered sphere that looks like it was plucked straight from the night sky. (Credit: The Jazz Club by QC) But cut into it, and you'll find the smoothest mousse-like texture with a peanut buttery finish that lingers long after your last bite. Then there's 'the lady in red' – a striking black pillow with a bold red heart on top. It's impossibly soft, creamy and laced with hints of raspberry. This isn't just a jazz club, and it's certainly not just a café. It's an all-round experience and one that dallies like the last note of a saxophone solo, smooth, soulful and memorable. Abu Dhabi might not have been the obvious place for a jazz spot, but The Jazz Club by QC proves that sometimes, the best things are unexpected.
Los Angeles Times
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘A Love Supreme' at 60: Musicians celebrate the timeless work of jazz genius
On Dec. 9, 1964, saxophonist John Coltrane, bassist Jimmy Garrison, pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones assembled at Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey's Van Gelder Studio. That one-day session became a seminal piece of music history, 'A Love Supreme,' which six decades later is widely regarded as one of the most important albums ever recorded. 'A Love Supreme' has all the accolades — constant mentions on countdowns of the greatest albums, preservation in both the Smithsonian and National Recording Registry, platinum sales in the U.S. However, the true impact of the album — which is considered along with Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue' one of the two most essential jazz works — is felt the most when talking about it with musicians. Often described as spiritual, meditative, raw, yearning, divine, longing, beautiful, transcendent and profound, the four-part 'A Love Supreme' — broken down into 'Acknowledgment,' 'Resolution,' 'Pursuance' and 'Psalm' — is as much a rite of passage for musicians as 'The Catcher in the Rye' or 'The Great Gatsby' are for young writers or Pablo Picasso is for young artists. In decades of talking to the greatest musicians from all walks of life and all genres, Coltrane's masterpiece is cited as much as any album as being an influence. In fact, you can argue 'A Love Supreme' has shaped popular music as much as any single album. Testament to that is the group of musicians who lined up to talk about what this works means to them in honor of the 60th anniversary. Among the Coltrane fans we spoke to were Flea, Q-Tip, Rakim, Kamasi Washington, St. Vincent, Common, Greg Dulli, Robert Glasper and Theo Croker as well as Grammy-winning producer Larry Klein and Jamie Krents, president of Verve Records, which will be reissuing a special anniversary edition this Friday. All spoke about their introduction to the record and then in honor of the album's four parts about its musicianship, meaning, influence and legacy. A calling to God, from God, a testament to the unyielding will to love, to all the beauty in this insane world, 'A Love Supreme' is, represents the highest level music can reach. 'It's a touchstone for sanity, it's a touchstone for beauty, for human possibilities,' Flea said. Introduction Flea: I first heard 'A Love Supreme' when I was a teenager. I don't know if I was ready for 'A Love Supreme' until I got to be in my late teens, where I could really feel the power of it and even though I was an atheist and not a man of faith or even thinking about believing in God or a divine concept I felt the spirituality of it without knowing it. It's like one of the things in life that you can't really articulate or understand but it's still there for you in whatever language you are able to use to understand it. You hear those first notes and it'll blow your head off with the sheer power. That record works on so many levels. Robert Glasper: It's funny, the first time I heard it I was in seventh grade, I bought the album. My mom was a singer, so she had a band and I think one of her musicians told me to buy it. I was listening to a lot of Kenny G and he's like, 'You need to listen to another saxophone player. You should listen to John Coltrane.' I was like, 'Alright.' He said, 'Get 'A Love Supreme.' ' So, I'll never forget it. I put it on, I got in the shower, everything was fine, then when the chanting came on it scared the living hell out of me. I didn't know there was any singing. Greg Dulli: I worked at Tower Records on the Sunset Strip in 1984. And every shift you got to run the information booth. That meant you were the DJ for the entire hour. I was in there on a Friday night and one of my favorite actors would come in every Friday and one time he came up to me and said, 'Do you ever play jazz?' I didn't know much about jazz; I was 19 from Ohio. So, the first record he played for me was 'Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis and the second record was 'A Love Supreme.' That person was Peter Falk, so Peter Falk turned me on to jazz music and helped educate me. Then flash forward to the Twilight Singers, probably around 2003. I've always thrown covers into my shows and sometimes I just grab them out of the ether and throw them in, not even knowing how they got in there. But we started riffing 'A Love Supreme' and I even wrote lyrics for it and I changed them every night. Larry Klein: For young musicians who were listening, when a record of John Coltrane's came out, you went down to the record store and you bought it right away. 'A Love Supreme' was a dramatic departure from what he had done before and amazing, but every record, they were all just huge leaps forward. By the time I was actually playing with my jazz heroes, he had passed away, but they were all, whether it was Freddie Hubbard or Wayne Shorter, all these guys were profoundly influenced by him. I was always grilling them and what it was like to be around him. Freddie and Wayne would go over to his house and practice with him. They said that it was always very inspiring because he had tremendous focus and was wide open with regard to how he approached developing his musical language. Rakim: When I first heard it, I was so young. I didn't really know what know what to feel. Everybody else was raving about it. But I didn't really know what was going on. Again, I didn't know the name of the record was until maybe it could have been months later. But it was a moment for the people in the house listening to it. It was a moment for them and me as a little kid. I had to be no more than 10. I was the youngest in the household. So there was always good music being played. There was always jazz being played. And the furthest one from understanding it was me. I'm a little kid. You play some Michael Jackson or something like that, then I know exactly what it is. But I'm growing up and everybody's playing jazz, so I'm trying to understand it. I'm watching everybody's facial expressions. I'm listening to what they saying about the music and things of that nature. So when jazz came on in my house, it was a learning experience for me. At first, I heard the song, and not too much later I heard the title of the song. But I didn't really put one and two together, just 'A Love Supreme,' but then later as you get to know more about Coltrane you understood what the title of the song meant to him and what his passion was for that song and then when you listen to it of course and you hear it differently now. You understand where he was coming from. You understand where he was trying to take it and what he wanted you to experience in the song. Musicianship Kamasi Washington: From a musician's standpoint, there's so much in there. So, I find that my experience of 'A Love Supreme' has taken on almost like a life of the record. I grew up on that album, but by the time I really was attaching to it as my own, not my dad's record, 'Pursuance' was the part of the record that I grabbed first. Then I spent years holding on to that. There's a lifetime worth of music in that one song. Then as I got older, 'Resolution' was the next part that when I turned that record on, I would go straight to that track first and then listen to the rest after that. Then 'Acknowledgement.' It's one of those records that for me personally fills me up. Every time I listen to that record, it's like a creative musical recharge. Cause there is so much spirit in the music. It's hard to put into words. Q-Tip: It's just his horn, the construction of the songs, his ability to pull something deep and throw it up in the sky and then watch it float or land on the track. It's courageous, it's rock and roll too, as much as it is spiritual, if you think about it. Rock and roll not in the sense of white boys with long hair and Stratocasters, but rock and roll in the sense of the just unbridled, uncompromising sound that's hard, it's harsh, it's dynamic, but it's really talking without words. He's just taking you to the edge. He knows when he has you, you just go into the edge and when you drop into the music, it can't escape you. Whether you like jazz or not, you could put that on somewhere and ... somebody will say, 'Who's this?' Because that's how unique of a sound it is. It's avant-garde without trying, It's gospel without preaching, it's primal, it's subdued, it's beautiful, it's just a robust sound. The recording of it sounded like waves crashing to, a lake getting a stone thrown across it and you're looking at a ripple. It just ropes you in, man. It's a magnet. Glasper: A lot of times when you're young it's just based on the technical part out of it. 'Oh, that sounds cool. Let me learn this lick, let me learn the vocabulary.' As you get older it becomes something you really feel and it becomes spiritual. For me, as I got older that's what it was. I didn't feel Trane the same back then. When I was younger it was about McCoy [Tyner]. It was the licks and how fast he was playing, the technical thing. As a grown person now I understand what people put on Trane. He was going through things, you could hear it. He was the voice of an era, he was the voice of so many things that grown people go through. Now I can hear it and I can totally understand that perspective of it, why he was playing that way. Flea: Jimmy Garrison might be the most underrated jazz bass player of them all. He is so amazing in everything that he did. He is so incredible with Trane, but he has this droning depth of this like voodoo trance that he gets into on the bass. The warmest thing I've ever heard in my life and 'A Love Supreme' doesn't happen without Jimmy Garrison. He makes the bed for Coltrane in a way that is just a bottomless pit of grooves and greatness. Theo Croker: Well, for me, over the years, the simplicity of it has become more apparent, which has only gone to enhance the spirituality of it. From a performance aspect, the level of vibe and spirit that are on this record and these takes become more and more masterful to me as time goes on. When you first hear it, you feel powerful, you feel impactful, it feels very spiritual. As I grow as a musician and get better at playing music and understand more the things I hear before, 'A Love Supreme' to me is almost like a blues record. So the simplicity of it really shines through to remind me as a musician and creator that it's all in the feeling, it's all in the power behind the notes and the music. The technical aspect of it or the chord changes or how wild it is or advanced is really not anywhere near as impactful or important as the spirituality behind playing it. Meaning St. Vincent: You hear somebody, the most honest reckoning with what it is to be a human and also for musicians, the knowledge that this thing, music, is so much bigger than you and you're lucky if you get to catch a lightning bolt for, an hour, or three minutes, or whatever, but it's just clawing its way into divinity. And it's a painful listen, it's ecstatic, it's the most beautiful. It just goes so deep. Common: 'A Love Supreme' for me, speaks to my spirit in different ways in accordance to the way that I grow too. It's one of those pieces of art that continues to evolve as I grow. I see the love in it, the spirituality in it. I see God in it, and I see the unity in it. I see calmness in it. I see that music; I've played it at times when I'm stressed out and dealing with some of the most difficult situations. I played it when I'm sitting with a beautiful woman just wanting to put on some music that feels amazing and we can just chill and sip wine and have a good time. I've played it at times when I'm zoning out and I need to write. ... I played it in so many spaces like on my rides up to going up the [Pacific Coast Highway], just keeping myself calm and meditative. Rakim: It taught me how to be passionate about things. For him to keep repeating ['A love supreme'] like that, he's trying to get you to feel the same way he feels. That could be toward anything. It's the passion. And I think like we were saying earlier, a lot of people may have interpreted it in different ways. Some people listened to it and said, 'Yeah, I love my spouse more.' Some people listen to it and say, 'Yeah that too but that your love has to be pure.' It just gave people so many ways to interpret that and every one of them was good. Washington: I always took it more as a love is supreme. That was always my take, love is the most supreme part of love. It's just that to have love is supreme. And God is love. And I feel like that was part of his message in life. It's just the whole idea of being a force for good and that notion that love is like the ultimate good. That it is supreme and has the power to encompass everything. Influence St. Vincent: There are moments on, say, a song from my last record called 'Broken Man,' where at the end, there's these saxes coming in and they're doing these stabs and the stabs are violent, but then also there's just kind of a wild sax solo. I didn't say, 'Hey, cop Coltrane or anything like that.' Maybe the modality like, 'Boom, boom.' That bassline is the proto hip-hop. So maybe you draw a line to my kind of modal baselines that kind of harken back to 'A Love Supreme.' Common: I got a song called 'Love Is...' [and it] definitely has 'A Love Supreme' in it. Even the spirit or mentality of having my father talk on some of my album and having him do a spoken word was the inspiration of what 'A Love Supreme' brings to my heart and to my soul. It could be an instrumental with a spoken word on it to me that comes from me loving writing over 'Love Supreme' and then I would think certain songs subconsciously have been influenced by it. But one thing I'll tell you, I've tried several times to use it for my books. Klein: The jazz musicians that I came up apprenticing with were profoundly affected by that record and also other records of his but certainly that record because it was so dramatically different from anything else that was coming out in the jazz world. So many jazz artists were still stuck in the neo-bop kind of model of things. On one hand I think he took a lot of heat for that record because it was so free and so much of a prayer and so much of a meditation that the jazz musicians who were preoccupied with virtuosity thought it was very disappointing. But for me though I respected virtuosity and aspired to it to a certain degree, that part of jazz was never the heart of it. For me, the heart of jazz was always lyricism and getting at something that changed you as a listener. As a listener, 'A Love Supreme' was so exciting. The forward-thinking musicians saw it as a major step forward in breaking things open in jazz. Rakim: When I first started picking my style out, I didn't know what was going on, I was listening to a Coltrane record in my mother and father's basement. And I remember seeing he didn't play the same melody twice. After I listened to that John Coltrane record, I came up with the style to never repeat the same bar or the same rhythm in my bars. So my first records, I never repeated a rhythm or the rhyme. I always changed the rhyme flow. I never used the same rhyme flow because of John Coltrane. It was so energetic and so moving, I incorporated that into the way I rhyme. Legacy Flea: There's a reason why a John Coltrane comes around once and never happens again. It's like Bach. It's these people that transcend to a higher place because they get beyond the form. That's when it becomes timeless and for everybody. It's beautiful. It's been one of the go-to's. I got married six years ago; we played 'A Love Supreme' when we walked down the aisle. When my kids were born, I'm sitting there with the boombox and 'A Love Supreme' on for as soon as they come out of the birth canal. On it goes, 'Boom, welcome to the world, there are beautiful things here. You are going to suffer, you are going to be betrayed, you are going to hurt, you are, worse than that, probably going to betray other people consciously or not, you're going to feel a lot of pain. But there are things that are so beautiful beyond our comprehension, and this is it right here. This is the thing. This is what human beings are capable of at their very, very best.' St. Vincent: This record there's agony in there. There's clawing at the heavens. There's righteousness, like this idea that it's so powerful you simply must bow before it. I mean, it's God, right? It's the closest I get to seeing, feeling God, God writ large, God capital G, all the complications and ecstasy you see therein. Yeah, that was my first experience with it. And that remains my experience with it. But my conception of God and that which is divine has obviously changed and shifted as I've grown. So that which is sacred. Common: It would be 'A Love Supreme.' That would be the most played. If I looked in my life and thought about which album I played the most throughout my life now, especially in adulthood, because I wasn't up on John Coltrane when I was really young. But as an adult, it has been 'A Love Supreme.' It's one of the wonders of the world, it's something that will always be on the planet and moving people. So the same way we look at 'The Godfather' as a film, like it'll always be here. 'A Love Supreme' is that, like it's one of the greatest creations that God has ever given an artist. Washington: John Coltrane put so much meaning behind everything he played. Beyond his technical and musical abilities, which were at the highest level, there was always so much spirit. His essence and whatever he was trying to speak to beyond music was always so pronounced in his music. And it's right there, this love, it's supreme and it's universal and it's something that every person, every musician, every artist, every human being, can relate to that idea. I think that it's so pronounced in the music that anyone who gives it chance to speak to them will feel that ideal and will feel love and that's what grabs you. As soon as you let go to it, then you feel that sensation, you feel that feeling, and all of its facets. And when you go on the whole journey of the whole record, you can't help but to feel like this witness to something profound, witness to something from God. Q-Tip: I guess music is like the connectivity to life's evolution. And in a spiritual way. Because, when life first arrives, say it's just a baby, you see the cute little eyes, the cheeks, the drooling, the crying, the laughing, then as it evolves, you see that same little face, then you see a tooth, then they start uttering words, then they just become a whole thing. And I think 'A Love Supreme' is kind of like that because, on face value, I remember when I first heard it, it's just like, 'Wow.' But then it grows and evolves. Or the old adages, you hear something different every time you hear a good song or a certain song, they always have these reveals within the song that you may not have noticed five years prior and there's a certain maturity you gain when you hear something. With this album, it's like an infant that's just morphing. Dulli: I consider myself a spiritual but not religious person. So what I take from it is what I take from any great music, it moves inside me and it takes me somewhere. That song for me to be in a rock and roll band and grab that out of the ether, it means it had a spiritual import for me. It came to me onstage in the middle of another song and I was able to weave it in. Then when you're touring, after you weave something in you begin to hone it, and pretty soon I was covering the song. So clearly, to me, it had a power that resided in me probably since I was 19 years old. Glasper: My mother passed away in 2004 and I think that turned something on in me. Life started happening after that, I started getting real relationships with people, started losing other people, started losing family members, you see family members on drugs, you see what drugs do to people, you see what racism does in America, you see people get killed by the police, you see all these things and now I'm going through my own version of some of what Trane was dealing with in his life. Growing up in the church as well, 'A Love Supreme' you can really hear he found spirituality, you can hear it in the music. The music was spiritual. That was around when he was coming out of drugs and found his new footing in life and found God. I can totally understand that now because in my own way I've done the same. Croker: I feel like John Coltrane in this situation is like Martin Luther King Jr. giving the 'I Have a Dream' speech. That concept is so simple, but it's so impactful. John Coltrane is like a master minister on this album and his band is like his choir. It contains all those elements of what is commonplace in jazz now. A spiritual aspect of a drone, an eight-bar form and playing the blues and some kind of rebuttal thing. That's like part of the standard repertoire now. Jamie Krents: Part of the reason 'A Love Supreme' is so important is that it defies categorization. It's easy to call it a spiritual jazz record but just listening to the diversity of the musicians you've spoken to about it, it's had just as big an impact on people we associate with punk rock as it does with the most diligent jazz musicians and nonmusicians too. I think that that's one reason why it survived, and it is amazing to think that we're celebrating the 60th anniversary and yet it sounds as fresh as anything I've heard this year. I don't say that lightly.
