A Love Supreme, since its release 59 years ago, has been an album as religion: To bend your ear to its might is to bend your soul – your being too. As perfect an album that exists – though John Coltrane probably never believed in true perfection – it stands as one of recorded music’s greatest achievements.

But the A Love Supreme story exists outside just the bounds of the four songs on the album: Coltrane attempted to record the album twice – first with a quartet, then with a sextet. The six-piece iteration managed to get through one song after a few takes before Coltrane decided he liked the four-piece better. He only played the album live in full three times, and only two of those were recorded. The sextet, and the live takes, and some alternate mono mixes and o...