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John Coltrane recorded his milestone album "A Love Supreme" in December 1964 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs.

(Chuck Stewart)

IN ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas on the evening of Dec. 9, 1964. Amid Santa displays and nativity scenes, holiday lights festooned homes to create a festive atmosphere in the small Bergen County borough.

After a day of work and school, residents settled in for a night of television. Among their choices were the musical-variety series “Shindig!” featuring Chubby Checker and the British band Manfred Mann, and “The Danny Kaye Show,” with guest star Tony Bennett.

Inside his recording studio on Sylvan Avenue, engineer Rudy Van Gelder was focusing on a different type of music — jazz — as saxophonist John Coltrane and his three-piece supporting band set up for a recording session with producer Bob Thiele. Before the night ended, Coltrane would create “A Love Supreme,” a milestone recording in the history of jazz whose themes of spiritual rebirth and uplift fit in with the hope and optimism of the holiday season.

John Coltrane, photographed in the Van Gelder Studio with wife Alice, completed "A Love Supreme" in about four hours.

“A Love Supreme,” released in early 1965, is presented as a suite in four parts: “Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance” and “Psalm.” Led by Coltrane’s tenor saxophone, the music is, by turns, soaring and solemn, soulful and searching. The album clocks in at just under 33 minutes.

In his 2008 book, “1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die,” Tom Moon, a Haddonfield resident, saxophonist and recording artist, calls “A Love Supreme” “devotional music of the highest order ... which aims to brings listeners to a higher state.”

“A Love Supreme” was a key part of Coltrane’s spiritual journey after overcoming problems with drug and alcohol abuse. “During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening, which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life,” the saxophonist, then 38, wrote in the album’s liner notes. “At the time, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music. This album is a humble offering to HIM.”

Lewis Porter, author of “John Coltrane: His Life and Music” (2000), and a jazz pianist and professor of music at Rutgers University in Newark, says Coltrane closely oversaw all facets of “A Love Supreme.” “This album was a special one for him. He got involved with writing the liner notes and the poem (‘A Love Supreme’) that goes with ‘Psalm.’ He picked the cover photograph and painting (a portrait of Coltrane, by Victor Kalin) that appears inside the album cover. It’s the only time he got involved to that extent.”

The choice of Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs was no accident.

Coltrane, who began working with the engineer in the mid-1950s as a sideman with Miles Davis, enjoyed recording with Van Gelder.

“Coltrane had very strong feelings for Van Gelder,” says Ashley Kahn, author of the 2002 book “A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album.”

“He brought his abilities, talents and dedication to the music,” Kahn adds, of Van Gelder.

In Englewood Cliffs, Van Gelder had constructed a studio in his home and began recording there in the summer of 1959. Earlier sessions were done at a studio set up at his parents’ home in Hackensack.

Rudy Van Gelder, seen in a 2000 photo, oversaw John Coltrane's 1964 recording at his studio.

Van Gelder says the studio was an ideal setting for “A Love Supreme.”

“While I was building the new studio (in Englewood Cliffs), the neighborhood had no idea what kind of structure it was,” Van Gelder recalls. “As it came together, everyone assumed it was going to be a church with a peak in the center of the room. The look and feel was very church-like,” he adds.

“As I look back and realize where his music was going, I can see his music had a spiritual quality, which matched perfectly with the atmosphere of the new studio,” says Van Gelder, 90, who still holds an occasional session at his studio but has cut back on working due to his health, advanced age and, he says, the changing nature of the music business.

While Coltrane had enjoyed success with Atlantic Records, recording “Giant Steps” and “My Favorite Things” in New York, he welcomed the chance to return to Van Gelder’s studio after signing with Impulse! Records, according to Kahn, of Fort Lee.

“For many jazz musicians, such as Coltrane, it was a home away fromhome,” Porter says of the studio. “He felt comfortable in it.”

Van Gelder Studio was noted for its acoustics, which included the nearly 40-foot-high ceilings. The engineer also brought an attention to detail when recording, Kahn says.

“It was his near geek-like dedication to his craft, always upgrading his equipment, trying out new ideas, approaches to get the best sound possible, and taking it to the very end as far as mastering his own session recordings,” Kahn says in describing Van Gelder’s strengths in the studio.

“My goal is to make the musicians sound the way they want to be heard,” Van Gelder told The New York Times in 2005.

The album was a commercial and critical success.

The recording of “A Love Supreme” went smoothly for Coltrane, who elevated the performances of his supporting cast.

“What the rest of us contributed (to ‘A Love Supreme’) was because of his leadership, example and stature as an artist. He created that impulse to excel,” drummer Elvin Jones wrote in the introduction to Kahn’s book.

Coltrane added instruments to his sonic palette for the recording. The album opens with the sound of a gong, instantly capturing the listener’s attention. “It was like a benediction, an announcement that something important was about to begin,” says Kahn.

“Acknowledgement” also features Coltrane chanting the album’s title for just over half a minute, reinforcing the spiritual theme. It would be the only time he featured his voice in a studio recording.

Coltrane was a democratic bandleader, sharing the spotlight with his fellow musicians, who included Jones, bassist Jimmy Garrison and pianist McCoy Tyner. Garrison’s subtle, heartbeat bass at the end of “Acknowledgement” recalls a supplicant at prayer, while Tyner’s brisk piano work lets the music take flight on “Pursuance.”

Jones uses tympani to create a dramatic mood on “Psalm,” which features Coltrane expressing the words of the poem “A Love Supreme” through his saxophone.

While artists can spend months or, in some cases years, laboring over an album, "A Love Supreme" was recorded in about four hours.

"That's a jazz thing," says Porter. "It was typical to finish a recording in one day."

The album was a commercial and critical success for Coltrane. It has been certified gold (sales of 500,000 copies) in Japan and the United States. “A Love Supreme” was selected as Record of the Year in 1965 in the Readers Poll of DownBeat magazine. Coltrane also was named Tenor Saxophonist and Jazzman of the Year, and was inducted into the magazine’s Hall of Fame.

In the passing decades, the impact of Coltrane and “A Love Supreme” has only deepened, says Moon, who does musical commentary for National Public Radio.

“Anyone who studies improvised music finds their way to that record (‘A Love Supreme’). No one who picks up a saxophone escapes Coltrane’s shadow,” Moon adds.

LISTEN UP

• John Coltrane had strong ties to the Garden State. The North Carolina native worked at the Campbell Soup Company in Camden before joining the U.S. Navy in 1945.

• Coltrane did more recording in New Jersey than in any other state, according to Lewis Porter, author of “John Coltrane: His Life and Music.” He recorded at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs and earlier in Van Gelder's first studio space in his parents' Hackensack home.

• Coltrane was considering a move to Teaneck at the time of his death on July 17, 1967, Porter says, and the saxophonist also considered opening a club in the Garden State.

— T.W.

Van Gelder says Coltrane’s artistry is more evident today than during the recording in 1964.

“At the session, I was so involved in other matters concerning the mix and the overall sound and the sheer mechanics of getting the music on tape, I really had no awareness of the music itself,” he admits. “That came years later, when I was remastering it. That’s when I realized how great it was, and I thought, ‘They can only do that once. They can never do it that way again.’ ”

While Coltrane died of liver disease at age 40 in July 1967, “A Love Supreme” lives on.

Kahn is no fan of listening to the album on an iPod because of the sound quality. “It’s like looking at the ‘Mona Lisa’ with sunglasses,” says Kahn, who estimates he listened to “A Love Supreme” hundreds of times while researching and writing his book.

Instead, he suggests “a good sound system or headphones — but the mastery will get through no matter the hardware.”

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