John Coltrane's essential jazz masterpiece, A Love Supreme, is getting the red-carpet treatment for its 50^th anniversary, expanded to three discs in A Love Supreme: The Complete Masters.

A fusion of Coltrane's early hard bop and later free jazz styles, A Love Supreme is an arresting four-part suite inspired in part by Coltrane's increasing faith, after a near-overdose some years before. Coltrane's tenor saxophone conveys his gratitude to a higher power through a repeating four-note motif (later accompanied literally by Coltrane himself, through vocal overdubs). The album's closing "Psalm" features a "musical narration" as Coltrane plays a note for each syllable of a devotional poem he wrote (included in the album liner notes).

Recorded in two days in Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs, NJ studio with Coltrane's "classic quartet" (bassist Jimmy Garrison, drummer Elvin Jones and pianist McCoy Tyner), A Love Supreme was an immediate hit in 1965, selling 500,000 copies and becoming Coltrane's defining work that has lived on beyond Coltrane himself, who died of cancer just two years later at the age of 40.

The triple-disc A Love Supreme: The Complete Masters features a wealth of audio extras. The original stereo album is augmented with previously unreleased mono reference masters from Trane's personal archive. Disc 2 features the complete sessions from December 9-10, 1964, four takes of which were released on an expanded edition in 2002. (The sessions from the 10th consist of a second attempt at album opener "Acknowledgement," with saxophonist Archie Shepp and bassist Art Davis joining the quartet. Two of the previously released tracks are making their debut in stereo.) The third disc features the quartet's performance of A Love Supreme at the Festival Mondial du Jazz in Antibes in July of 1965--the only time the album was played live in full.

The package will feature a plethora of additional information in the form of Coltrane's surviving original sketches, rare photos and liner notes by Ashley Kahn, author of A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album, and Carlos Santana (who introduces the live material in his essay). A cut-down edition features the first two discs.

Both versions are available on November 6, the start of a yearlong catalog effort for the 60^th anniversary of Verve Records, parent label of Impulse!

Check out the full specs below!

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme: The Complete Masters (Impulse! B0023726-02, 2015)

3-CD Version: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 
2-CD Version: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Links TBD

Disc 1: Original album (stereo and mono)

1. Part I: Acknowledgement
2. Part II: Resolution
3. Part III: Pursuance
4. Part IV: Psalm
5. Part I: Acknowledgement *
6. Part II: Resolution *
7. Part III: Pursuance *
8. Part IV: Psalm *

Tracks 1-4 released as Impulse AS-77, 1965. Tracks 5-8 taken from Coltrane's original mono reference masters and are previously unreleased.

Disc 2: Sessions (previously unreleased except where noted)

1. Part I: Acknowledgement (Undubbed)
2. Part I: Acknowledgement (Vocal Overdub #2)
3. Part I: Acknowledgement (Vocal Overdub #3)
4. Part II: Resolution (Take 1/Breakdown)
5. Part II: Resolution (Take 2/Breakdown)
6. Part II: Resolution (Take 3/Breakdown)
7. Part II: Resolution (Take 4/Alternate) (previously released on Impulse! 314 589 945-2, 2002)
8. Part II: Resolution (Take 5/Breakdown)
9. Part II: Resolution (Take 6/Breakdown) (previously released on Impulse! 314 589 945-2, 2002)
10. Part IV: Psalm (Undubbed)
11. Part I: Acknowledgement (Take 1/Alternate) (previously released in mono on Impulse! 314 589 945-2, 2002)
12. Part I: Acknowledgement (Take 2/Alternate) (previously released in mono on Impulse! 314 589 945-2, 2002)
13. Part I: Acknowledgement (Take 3/Breakdown with Studio Dialogue)
14. Part I: Acknowledgement (Take 4/Alternate)
15. Part I: Acknowledgement (Take 5/False Start)
16. Part I: Acknowledgement (Take 6/Alternate)

Tracks 1-10 recorded December 9, 1964. Tracks 11-16 recorded December 10, 1964

Disc 3: Live @ Festival Mondial du Jazz, Antibes - July 26, 1965 (previously released on Impulse! 314 589 945-2, 2002 - exclusive to 3CD edition/Impulse! B0023727-02, 2015)

1. Introduction by M.C. Andre Francis
2. Part I: Acknowledgement
3. Part II: Resolution
4. Part III: Pursuance
5. Part IV: Psalm