Jazz is generally viewed as the opposite of a musical genre fixed in a score, thus assuming that manuscripts do not play an important role in jazz history. After an overview of manuscripts in early jazz emphasizing the importance for obtaining copyright, the autograph manuscripts of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme are examined. By comparing the different takes of the recording session and a concert registration to these manuscripts and the liner notes of the album, the role of manuscripts in performances is questioned. For the fourth part of A Love Supreme it is most likely that in the recording session – in contrast to the concert in Antibes – Coltrane had a manuscript of the so-called poem or prayer in front of him, but this cannot have been any of the extant ones.