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"A Love Supreme", by Ashley Kahn


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I saw this the other day in Borders - it was about the only thing they had, apart from kiddies' video games, Starbucks coffee and biscottis ( = slivers of dried-up cake at a gouging price).

Looked good, but too expensive, so I got it way cheaper through Amazon.

Anyways, it has arrived, and a one-hour browse says that it's well worth getting. It has lots of fresh info about Trane, Impulse, Rudy and so on, and great photos - notably of "the day after", with Archie Shepp and Art Davis. At the knock-down price offered by the Amazon associates, it's a steal.

Anyone else seen this?

For what it's worth, I never bought into the belief that it's Trane's best album. I love the album, but, for me, it's one of many excellent records that he made. If I had to pick a favorite (and that would be very difficult), I'd probably go for either the (first) Village Vanguard album or "Crescent".

This is not a new book, but I couldn't find another thread about it on here.

Based on this, I have ordered its companion, the "House That Trane Built" book.

Does anyone have any comments to make about the "Kind of Blue" volume?

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I saw this the other day in Borders - it was about the only thing they had, apart from kiddies' video games, Starbucks coffee and biscottis ( = slivers of dried-up cake at a gouging price).

Looked good, but too expensive, so I got it way cheaper through Amazon.

Anyways, it has arrived, and a one-hour browse says that it's well worth getting. It has lots of fresh info about Trane, Impulse, Rudy and so on, and great photos - notably of "the day after", with Archie Shepp and Art Davis. At the knock-down price offered by the Amazon associates, it's a steal.

Anyone else seen this?

For what it's worth, I never bought into the belief that it's Trane's best album. I love the album, but, for me, it's one of many excellent records that he made. If I had to pick a favorite (and that would be very difficult), I'd probably go for either the (first) Village Vanguard album or "Crescent".

This is not a new book, but I couldn't find another thread about it on here.

Based on this, I have ordered its companion, the "House That Trane Built" book.

Does anyone have any comments to make about the "Kind of Blue" volume?

I haven't read the "A Love Supreme" book, but I found the "Kind of Blue" book enjoyable, more like a really good magazine article than a book, but he goes through what happened before and after the album was made, how he got there and how it influenced other musicians at the time, which I think he does in "A Love Supreme" as well. I have the "House That Trane Built" and really it's neither fish nor foul IMHO, I found it a bit boring overall but it did have a few good bits and pieces, I got a hard back copy really cheap so that's the main reason I bought it.

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I found the Kind of Blue book Kind of Boring. I liked this book about ALS more. . . I knew less about the album and its circumstances I guess. Made it more interesting. There is something about Kahn's writing that doesn't draw me in as well. . . a fawning perhaps, not sure how to describe it. Still, lots of nice information to absorb.

I have the "House that Trane Built" but haven't yet read it. Too many books in between! It's available at www.daedalusbooks.com if anyone is interested in a reasonably priced copy.

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I have all three books. I read ALS first, really enjoyed it, then went to KOB. It's good too, but I didn't find it quite as interesting. I think there's a bit more depth in the ALS book. For me, "The House that Trane Built" was the least interesting of the three.

I've only read The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse! Records and found it so-so. It strolls along and lacks depth. I hope his upcoming book Somethin' Else: The Story of Blue Note Records and the Birth of Modern Jazz will be better :)

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Hmmmmmmmmm, looks like Mr Kahn has a, shall we say, limited range, but then again, more power to him, nobody else is really doing things like this at the moment.

I do like the way he did the Kind of Blue book though, where really anybody who had the album as their "Jazz" album, could pick up the book and use it as manual to explore Jazz a little further.

Edited by Cliff Englewood
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I enjoyed the Impulse book. I did not think that I was getting a comprehensive history or anything close, but there were some interesting passages, such as the description of how a group of Sun Ra's early recordings came to be reissued on Impulse in the early 1970s. I had not read such a detailed explanation of that anywhere else.

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