Amen.' Ī Love Supreme was categorized by Rockdelux as modal jazz, avant-garde jazz, free jazz, hard bop, and post-bop. The poem (and, in his own way, Coltrane's solo) ends with the cry, 'Elation. Some scholars have suggested that this performance is an homage to the sermons of African-American preachers. Coltrane 'plays' the words of the poem on saxophone but doesn't speak them. The devotional is included in the liner notes. Lewis Porter calls it a 'wordless recitation'. In the fourth and final movement, 'Psalm', Coltrane performs what he calls a 'musical narration'. According to Rolling Stone, this movement's four-note theme is 'the humble foundation of the suite'. The motif becomes the vocal chant 'a love supreme', sung by Coltrane accompanying himself through overdubs nineteen times. He plays variations on the motif until he repeats the four notes thirty-six times. Jimmy Garrison enters on double bass with the four-note motif that lays the foundation of the movement. The album begins with the bang of a gong ( tam-tam) and cymbal washes on the first track, 'Acknowledgement'. Another influence may have been Ahmadiyya Islam.

Coltrane's home in Dix Hills, Long Island, may have inspired the album. One critic has written that the album was intended to represent a struggle for purity, an expression of gratitude, and an acknowledgement that the musician's talent comes from a higher power. Coltrane plays tenor saxophone on all parts. A Love Supreme is a through-composed suite in four parts: 'Acknowledgement' (which includes the oral chant that gives the album its name), 'Resolution', 'Pursuance', and 'Psalm'.

Ashley kahn a love supreme