I don't care what kind of music you predominantly listen to, you have to experience this CD. You may not "get it" with your first listen. I know that I didn't. But I kept playing it. I kept myself open. And then one day something imploded within me. My soul? My spirit? I don't know, but there was now a new hole in me that was filled with nothing less than the Holiness of John Coltrane's Wondrous Hymn to the Divine.

This isn't music...it really isn't. Music is something you can dance to, or hum along with, or maybe make you want to break out in song. This is a meditation...a devotion to the God of All Creation. I don't care what your personal beliefs are. This CD transcends creed, race, belief. It moves through all without judgment. It is the sound of Grace and it belongs to the universe. It is the OM vibration moving Its Impersonal Self into and through the personal self. It is the "I" of God presenting Itself as Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance, and Psalm.

Coltrane and his collaborators do not play the instruments...they are the instruments through which the Divine plays through them. It is simply a breathtaking recording that will never leave you the same ever! You won't put this on for background music. You won't be doing the laundry or reading the paper. You'll be sitting in your room with the lights off, a few candles lit, maybe a stick of incense burning and you will BEcome the message and the message will BEcome you.

May we all be split wide open and may Love Supreme enter into and through our collective dream of what we are and who we may become.

One of the 20th century's greatest and most important works got better in this edition. The highs are crisper, the articulations clearer, and the lows more distinct than either the LP or earler CDs.

That said, I think the ancillary material (on disc 2), while interesting for JC fans, provides little improvement on the studio version. The live version from France (Summer '65) is unfocussed, ragged, and sounds like they're trying to find a groove (and never do) throughout the performance. While it pressage's John's "free form" period, this doesn't serve the piece well. Second, the 2 sextette cuts may be historically interestng, but the sound quality is poor and the playing sounds crowded.

The 2 alternate takes are not really alternates as they so closely match the final version.

Should you buy this CD? Yes, for the quality of the reissued studio version, but not for the additional material.

This is the BEST version EVER offered on cd to date. The original tape they used for other offerings was flawed not when recorded but in the transfer process. They found a near perfect copy in a vault in London and used it to make this awesome version of the Coltrane masterpiece. This is a definitive album for those just getting into jazz or for fans of Coltrane in general. It has it ALL slower jazz parts and fast and furious sax interludes etc. A MUST have for new and old fans.