John Coltrane‘s A Love Supreme is a suite of music that‘s epic in its scope yet, in the way it gives thanks in a naked coda, as humble as its composer. For another musician to perform it is exceptionally challenging, as they have to pull off the role of someone undergoing something akin to spiritual revelation. The scope of the four part piece, moving from “Acknowledgement“ to ”Resolution”, “Pursuance” and “Psalm”, demands a musician try to articulate a range of emotions from curiosity through to what might be called enlightenment.

But the multi-reedist Shabaka Hutchings is currently experiencing his own life-changing revelation. This is billed as potentially his final performance on saxophone in the UK, so he needs some sort of offering, and A Love Supreme is one of the few pieces of music that carries sufficient weight. This performance at the beautiful Hackney Church (a recently restored venue near enough 1000 years old) promises a presentation of Coltrane’s classic Impulse! album, and though the publicity materials give no indication of what they will do and how they will do it, the absence of support acts and stage time of 9pm (sharp) suggests they are tackling the whole work head-on.

The church is packed and bathed in pink light, so I don’t immediately clock the inventive line-up of the band. I can see and hear two drummers, but it‘s only halfway through the performance that a companion spots no less than four percussionists. There are two bassists, an approach explored by Coltrane himself in 1961 on the mesmerising modal jam ”Olé“. Instead of piano, the chordal instrument is electric guitar, and with the McCoy Tyner role gone, even more emphasis is placed on Shabaka as the primary voice at the heart of the group.

He rises the challenge emotionally, physically, perhaps even spiritually. In the long and pulseless introduction to the piece, the saxophonist states the main theme and expands and deconstructs it in an impressive feat of stamina and imagination. A testifying vibe is strengthened by the location, and peaks and troughs of volume hype up the crowd like a call and response.

I wonder how the group plan to keep that momentum going through the whole of A Love Supreme. Electric guitar sits oddly with the chamber-music solemnity of the original album – a feeling of shared space, almost bearing witness to the music – but it comes into its own as it deepens the vibration of the groove and elongates the sense of time. Likewise, one of Hutchings‘s brand new instruments, the Japanese shakuhachi flute, provides a quieter supporting voice and a shifts the focus of the music.

They traverse and extend the contours of A Love Supreme without it feeling like a recital. Hutchings and the group channel the album’s sense of weight without ever feeling weighed down.

With such a warm communal feel with the group and the audience, I wonder how the group might do justice to the sense of drama and even fear in the tumultuous heart of A Love Supreme. And with the large ensemble, inevitably some sections diverge from the script of the original. The massed percussion creates some drag on the driving second section, “Resolution”, and it’s harder for the group to coincide on the final notes (or words, given the poem form) of Coltrane’s piece.

But Hutchings himself gives the human dimension that brings it together. He recites (or perhaps extemporises) a short poem where he gives thanks not just to God but also musicians that have come before him. It’s a moment of humility that brings the journey back down to earth, before Hutchings departs on his own musical and personal journey.

Image: Shabaka Hutchings and group at Hackney Church, December 2023 (Mariana dos Santos Pires)