John Coltrane - Face to Face with God

The Saint of Jazz

With John Coltrane, jazz music found its secular Saint, the quintessential spiritual figure who, more than any other, drew close to the sacred, almost coming to coincide with divinity itself. To reach this status the American saxophonist had to fight hard throughout his brief life, facing countless hardships that would ultimately cost him his life.

He became passionate about jazz during his high school years and began studying, briefly, the clarinet, then the tenor sax, which would become his instrument of choice. At first he played in the most varied line-ups, from military bands to rhythm'n'blues groups all the way up to the great jazz orchestras of the era. He spent his youth studying his instrument relentlessly: years of obsessive practice that allowed him to hone his technique to maniacal levels.

In particular, the young Coltrane played with Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra (from 1949 to 1951), on both alto and tenor sax. He then joined the bands of Earl Bostic and Johnny Hodges, showing an excellent technique that drew on the style of the era's leading saxophonists such as Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and Lester Young, without yet managing to find a truly personal approach.

Around the first half of the 1950s he entered an extremely difficult period, sinking into dependency on alcohol and heroin. It was precisely hitting rock bottom that would, at a certain point, in 1957 (the year he got clean), allow for his physical and spiritual rebirth, enabling him to truly become John Coltrane.

Between abyss and redemption, a spirituality between Socrates and Van Gogh

Coltrane was to jazz what Van Gogh was to painting or what Socrates was to philosophy. Men so marked by their mission that they paid for it with their lives, in Van Gogh's case at a very young age, just as Coltrane did, and in Socrates' case with a death that became a symbol of the pursuit of truth and freedom, an example for all of humanity to follow.

Coltrane discovered himself after years of sacrifice, relentless study and falls into the abyss of heroin addiction. He came to fully understand his own genius quite late, and when he did, he perceived it all as a gift that demanded gratitude. He felt it as a great responsibility that had to be carried through to its most extreme consequences. In the 1950s he was regarded as a flawless saxophonist within the charts he was asked to play, but no different from many other musicians of his generation. In the 1960s, the public's, critics' and acquaintances' perception of Coltrane changed radically. His mystical turn, his closeness to Eastern spirituality, transformed him, and from a technical musician he took on an aura almost like that of a saint or a prophet: at his concerts in his final years, many had the impression of witnessing a shaman officiating a religious ritual, such was his ability to magnetize the audience's attention, almost as if in a hypnotic trance.

His concerts had by then become unpredictable, generating feverish anticipation because no one quite knew what might happen. Any given piece could last anywhere from ten to fifty minutes, all depending on the mood of the moment. Coltrane moved from providing entertainment in jazz clubs (in the 1950s) to delivering true sensory experiences (in the 1960s), mystical celebrations aimed at shaking the listener's certainties in order to change them at their core.

From this point of view, his life seems similar to that of Van Gogh. The Dutch painter, too, discovered his genius late. He initially painted as a self-taught artist, then abandoned painting after religious crises that led him to imagine he might become a Christian preacher. At a certain point, a sudden spark made him grasp his own genius. Just as the Dutch artist, after years of suffering, reached his painterly peak, his own Van Gogh yellow, so Coltrane realized that his was a mission to be carried through to the end at all costs, striving towards a spirituality that would bring him truly within a step of God. And when his talent exploded, it blinded everyone, especially the critics, who at first failed to understand him. They dismissively labelled him anti-jazz. But from a certain point onward, at least from 1964, once his genius had fully detonated, criticism of John Coltrane mattered little to him, if at all.

Coltrane's life became increasingly comparable to that of a Socrates of jazz. And, as with Socrates, death was preferable to betraying his pursuit of truth. Such a powerful role demands sacrifice. He understood perfectly that the true innovator is a solitary man, and he willingly accepted his role.

Innovators are always met with harsh criticism, generally proportional to how far they have strayed from what is commonly deemed acceptable. Very often they are marginalized, rejected, second-class citizens. They are people who must accept their own tragic lives.

His artistic life burned up far too quickly: by the time he discovered his own genius, he had only a few years of life left in which to realize his greatest works. In a letter from 1960 he wrote: "Only now have I understood the meaning of my music."

John Coltrane therefore had very little time to truly become John Coltrane. His death, in 1967, from liver cancer (certainly brought on by the years of alcohol and drug abuse that preceded it), cut short the career of an artist at the very peak of his creativity, in the years when everything he produced carried a spark of unmatched magic. Listening today to the records he released between 1965 and 1967 (his golden three years) cannot help but send chills down one's spine, thinking of what might have happened in the years that followed had death not claimed him too young, at just 40 years old.

Toward divinity

In this brief span of time, Coltrane fully grasped his mission. He embraced all religions and understood how much unity lies within every culture, from African to Eastern, within Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist religions. Coltrane sensed how much common ground exists within diversity. All the arts, religions, philosophies — in a word, all men, however different from one another, tend toward unity. For Coltrane, God represented what is common to every man, a synthesis of all spiritualities. It's obvious that Coltrane's God was not the Catholic, Islamic or Buddhist one. For him there existed a single benevolent divinity enfolding the world, a universal love, a personalized God drawing on elements of both Eastern and Western religions.

Music as spiritual elevation

Once you grasp the existence of this force that drives towards unity, you can never forget it again. The purpose of my music is to meditate on it and to uplift people as much as I can, to inspire them so that they use their abilities to live lives full of meaning. Because life certainly does have meaning

Coltrane sees his new life as a redemption from sin and from the depths of addiction, chasing spiritual elevation through music. But his music isn't merely a personal means of reaching his own salvation — it has to become an instrument of redemption for the listener too, perhaps for all of humanity. In his greatest moments of genius (from 1964 onward) he seems to almost touch infinity with one hand. With his saxophone, he places himself in a line of continuity with figures like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, who fought against the segregation of Black Americans. Some through writing, some through music, some through film, some through politics — all of them pursuing the same goal: true American democracy, not one in which white people crush Black people, but a democracy in which all men are equal.

Coltrane, through his masterpieces, first acknowledges God — literally looks him in the eye and is struck by the vision (A Love Supreme) — then tries to bring Him into the realm of politics to help humanity find justice and equality (Ascension). While on A Love Supreme his music represents the awakening to God's existence, on Ascension it becomes a cry for help, a plea for intervention on Earth to bring about justice. And from this point on, caught between two albums so powerful and so different from one another, he will inevitably have to choose whether to contemplate God, withdrawing from the world and carrying on with the mystical style of A Love Supreme, or to fight to the bitter end with the free-jazz sounds of Ascension. He can no longer remain in between. Setting aside two subsequent transitional albums (Transition and Meditations), the choice will decisively fall on the second option, despite the criticism this will bring.

The Early Years, a Protagonist Behind the Scenes (1950-1957)

In the 1950s, John Coltrane began collaborating with major jazz musicians, recording seminal records, yet always staying behind the scenes. His name appeared as just one of the musicians in a quartet or sextet, never in the spotlight, which allowed him to gain highly varied experience that would forge a rock-solid musical foundation. His name started to circulate, and in 1955 he was hired by Miles Davis: it's the event that changes his life. At first Davis alternated him on sax with Sonny Rollins, whom he actually preferred. But in 1955 Rollins left the band to try to get clean, so Davis, just a few days before playing at the Newport Jazz Festival, had to choose between John Gilmore, Sun Ra's saxophonist, and John Coltrane. In truth, Davis wasn't convinced by either of them and hoped Rollins would come back, but once he realized that wouldn't happen, he chose Gilmore. A long tour was planned, and Gilmore only played the first date (September 5, 1955, in Philadelphia). Davis, unsatisfied, turned back to Coltrane, marking the start of their first collaboration (roughly two years, from '55 to '57).

These are fruitful yet difficult years for Coltrane. On one hand he records Round About Midnight (1955/56) and takes part in a string of concerts that contemporaries call sensational, on the other he is increasingly enslaved by his drug addiction, which reaches unbearable levels. Coltrane shows up on stage in the same clothes he slept in, often arrives late, and sometimes doesn't show up at all. But for Davis, the addiction isn't a problem — he himself had only recently gotten clean. He only demands that it not affect the quality of his shows.

In April 1957, however, tension between the two boils over. During a backstage brawl, Davis slaps Coltrane. Thelonious Monk witnesses the scene and, appalled, decides to hire Coltrane into his quartet. It's the start of a new collaboration that lasts about a year.

While his relationship with Davis had worn thin over a clash of personalities, with Monk, Coltrane forms a stronger, more stable bond.

I believe Monk is one of the greatest of all time. He's a true musical thinker. There aren't many like him

As withdrawn and moody as Davis is, Monk is just as warm and communicative. Coltrane learns an enormous amount: Monk answers every one of his questions, teaching him everything he asks about. He acts as a true mentor, perhaps even a father figure in his moments of greatest hardship. Monk's paternal presence gives Coltrane the strength to get clean. In the summer of 1957 he leaves New York for Philadelphia where, with the help of his mother and his wife and through sheer determination (he shuts himself indoors for several weeks drinking only water), he manages to find the strength to leave his addictions behind.

It's a rebirth that doesn't depend solely on ending his abuse of alcohol and drugs. Coltrane grows closer to religion, through a highly personal conception of his own, one that merges Indian spirituality with an almost pantheistic view of the world. He becomes a vegetarian and, for the first time, begins to identify with his fellow citizens fighting for African American rights. His technique improves and his self-confidence grows immensely. These are the years of long solos, like blazing-fast cascades that critics aptly dub "Sheets Of Sound." At the time, some critics begin calling him an angry musician, a label that will haunt him for the rest of his life: it's a huge misunderstanding, as he will explain on several occasions in interviews.

The First Solo Records (1957-1959)

His talent begins to emerge, and Prestige signs him for a series of albums under his own name. For the first time Coltrane steps out of the background to appear as a leader in his own right. His first record under his own name is the self-titled Coltrane (1957), an album that still sounds fairly typical of the hard bop of the era. Other works for Prestige include Blue Train (January 1958), a transitional work between his early steps and the years to come, featuring compositions like the title track (a magnificent summation of the jazz of the era), "Moment's Notice" and "Lazy Bird", marked by melodies and top-tier technique, even if still tied to the sound of the 1950s.

A few months later comes Soultrane (October 1958), which opens with "Good Bait", one of those tracks in which Coltrane, starting from a simple melody, offers endless improvised variations, stretching to a full twelve minutes without ever growing tiresome. Melancholy prevails on "Theme For Ernie" (dedicated to saxophonist Ernie Henry, who died of an overdose in 1957), where the magnificent tone of Coltrane's sax especially shines through. "Russian Lullaby" offers his trademark walls of saxophone cascading one after another, showing off a by-now extraordinary technique, poised for new leaps forward.

In these years for Prestige, Coltrane alternates original tracks with (more frequent) reinterpretations of pieces by other musicians. He also records further albums for Prestige that will be released posthumously. In 1991 the definitive box set (The Prestige Recordings) is released, gathering eighteen hours of music from all the recordings made over the 1956-1958 period. When in 1958 Miles Davis wants him back in his band, Coltrane is a decidedly more mature musician: also thanks to his contribution, an album like “Kind Of Blue” (1959) becomes one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of jazz. 

The Sixties, Giant Steps (1960-1961)

The 1960s mark the turning point of Coltrane's career. His second stint with Miles Davis has gone extremely well, and his talent is now ready to blossom. From here on he's clearly able to stand on his own two feet, and he's so aware of it that this time it's he who leaves the band. From Davis he learned modal music, from Monk technique and self-confidence, from listening to Ravi Shankar's Indian music he grasped the urgency of capturing the spiritual aspects of life and art, and from philosophy he learned to seek the essence of things, the pure sound that can lead to God. Other fundamental influences (free jazz, in particular) would come later. 

Coltrane signs a good contract with Atlantic, and out of these premises comes Giant Steps (January 1960), with a quartet made up of Tommy Flanagan on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Taylor on drums. An album that - starting with its very title - implies both a general improvement in the production and the long chord-tonality shifts the musicians were forced to navigate. It's likely that Coltrane (reserved as he was) was thinking mainly of the latter.

The title track is an overwhelming cascade of notes unfolding from a memorable melody, with a continuous, astonishing rise and fall of sounds (the giant steps, precisely). But every composition demands close listening: from "Naima", a slow ballad that lingers on the magnificent sound of the sax, to the blues of "Cousin Mary" to the playful "Syeeda's Song Flute" (dedicated to his daughter). Still with the same quartet, he releases Coltrane Jazz (February 1961), which sounds almost like a return to his debut - a step back into short hard bop tracks.

With My Favorite Things (1961), featuring McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on bass and Elvin Jones on drums, Coltrane returns in grand style to his path of artistic growth. He finally finds his "classic quartet", the perfect lineup that will accompany him for years. The four compositions aren't originals, but the versions Coltrane manages to record (experimenting with modal chords, as he'd learned from Miles Davis) mark a fundamental turning point in his career.

"My Favorite Things", a waltz theme written by Richard Rodgers, becomes an endless excursus in his live performances (he would play versions lasting up to fifty-eight minutes) and represents the peak of everything Coltrane had produced up to that point - here he plays the soprano sax for the first time. This modal version of the waltz is a hypnotic torrent that could go on forever without the listener ever losing focus. It's Coltrane's consecration, not only with audiences but also among musicians. Where jazz saxophonists once looked to Charlie Parker as their model, they now began to regard his style as their main point of reference.

1961 is an extremely prolific year; before leaving Atlantic for Impulse!, he releases Olé Coltrane with a lineup expanded to seven musicians, featuring for the first time free jazz master Eric Dolphy. This collaboration begins with a European tour and yields a series of works containing gems of great beauty, while also giving Coltrane an increasingly recognizable style, with long introductions resolving into interludes and finales built around fiery dialogues between the instruments.

Olé Coltrane comes about due to a bureaucratic technicality whereby the musician, having already signed a lucrative contract with Impulse Records, is obligated by Atlantic to record at least one more album. This hitch, however, gives him the chance to further explore modal improvisation combined with a mix of Spanish and African sounds, something he had already done previously with "Flamenco Sketches" on the aforementioned “Kind Of Blue” by Miles Davis. The eighteen minutes of the title track are a masterpiece blending flamenco and Spanish tradition with Coltrane's increasingly unmistakable style. The flow of the composition may recall that of "My Favorite Things", with a melody that is continually transformed minute by minute.

Africa/Brass (1961) is the first of a very long series of albums produced by Impulse!, which grants him tremendous artistic freedom. The lineup is the same as on Olé Coltrane, and the album stands out for its modal jazz version of the traditional tune "Greensleeves" and for the monumental "Africa" (sixteen minutes), where the Afro rhythms might suggest a return to his roots, when in fact Coltrane is a single step away from taking flight toward places never heard before. 

I'm collecting Ravi Shankar's records, and I'm sure that if I made an album with him I could expand my potential tenfold

With Live At The Village Vanguard (1961) we have a document of this lineup's four nights at the famous New York venue. Other tracks from those celebrated evenings, “India” and “Impressions,” were released two years later on Impressions (1963). Among them, “India” marks the culmination of an extraordinarily creative phase in which the influence of Ravi Shankar's music becomes truly decisive. The atmospheric intro, typical of the composer's new mindset, catapults us instantly into India and its spirituality, like a leap into the void in which the duality between Coltrane and Dolphy's clarinet finds absolute symbiosis. The ragas played on tenor sax reach religious and spiritual peaks that would only be surpassed years later with A Love Supreme (1965). 

In the two years preceding A Love Supreme (1965), Coltrane still seems in some way bound to public opinion. His growing engagement with the mystical aspects of existence is overwhelming him, but part of him still clings to the idea that his music ought to appeal to a wide audience. Albums like Coltrane (1962) and Ballads (1963), magnificent in many respects (take the fourteen minutes of “Out Of This World”), nonetheless retain a strong connection to what he'd done in previous years. The 1963 collaboration with Duke Ellington (Duke Ellington & John Coltrane) was opposed by the purists of the most radical jazz, but it's a superb dialogue between the Duke's piano and Coltrane's sax, two great experimenters collaborating together for the first time. It contains the finest version ever recorded of Duke Ellington's composition “In A Sentimental Mood,” where the symbiosy between the two truly reaches a state of grace. The sax and piano have a tone so pure and clean that it's impossible not to fall under its spell. An album more Ellingtonian than Coltranian, but essential for any jazz lover.

Another collaboration from 1963 is the one with Johnny Hartman. The two had known each other since the 1940s, and together they released John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman, the only entirely vocal album released under Coltrane's name. Hartman's crooner voice, backed by the Coltrane quartet, could hardly fail to shine, but here too the idea reflects Coltrane's attempt to build a stronger bond with his ever-growing audience. The version of “My One And Only Love” is bound to strike a chord with any listener.

A Faint Hope 

Meanwhile, Coltrane was drawing ever closer to the struggles of Black Americans demanding equal rights in a country ravaged by racism. A new atmosphere was in the air: the victory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the rise of leaders like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X hinted at a historical period of great change, one in which Coltrane actively took part through his music. He was convinced that everyone had to contribute their own abilities toward a single goal.

The Birmingham Massacre (September 5, 1963) and the Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (November 22, 1963). Music Becomes Part of the Uprising

On September 5, 1963, a terrifying event unfolded. It was the Birmingham massacre (in Alabama), where a group of four white supremacist terrorists belonging to the Ku Klux Klan planted a bomb near a church attended by the African American community. As fate would have it, the device exploded just as four young girls (Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Carol Denise McNair) were passing by, and they were killed instantly. It was a massacre.

Coltrane was devastated by the event and wrote, in honor of the four young victims, a deeply sorrowful composition titled “Alabama,” found on Live At Birdland (1963). Despite its brevity, it's one of his most intense works, opening with a somber intro before unfolding into a requiem-like melody, a moving meditation on death.

Coltrane truly began to fight for everyone's rights and stood on the front lines of African Americans' political battles. In jazz, other musicians followed the same path, including Charles Mingus, who that same year, 1963, released “The Black Saint And the Sinner Lady,” as well as Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp. Through their free jazz, they sought, iconoclastically, to break with every prior tradition. These were years of enormous cultural ferment, of which Coltrane's work was an integral part. From free jazz, albeit with some initial doubts, he grasped above all the need to keep changing and evolving.

On November 22, 1963, the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy shook the world and provided a further push toward change. Coltrane understood that music had to be part of a revolution that could no longer be put off. The 1963 albums would soon become just a memory. The flood was about to begin.

The Flood (1964-1967)

If you like something for ten minutes, why shouldn't I like it for forty-five minutes?

There's something miraculous about the years from 1964 to 1967. In 1964, Coltrane released only one album, which was fairly unusual. The reasons are several: first and foremost, his divorce from his first wife Naima, after meeting Alice McLeod, who would become his second wife (Alice Coltrane). Then there's the death of Eric Dolphy, on June 29, 1964, which affected him deeply. But the main reason lies in the fact that, after the tragic events of the previous year, Coltrane felt an urgent need to change and to move beyond the albums of 1963. This awareness triggered a long period of reflection, study and reading that helped him understand what he would want to do in the future.

Coltrane is fascinated by free jazz but still can't quite get a full grasp of it. Ornette Coleman recounts that Coltrane spent a whole year trying to truly understand free jazz. If 1964 is thus a year of reflection and transition, in which only Crescent is released - partly a hint of the creative explosion to come ("Wise One" has a tragic quality that seems to foreshadow the most desperate moments of "Psalm") - the following three years would be nothing short of memorable.

In December 1964 Coltrane recorded A Love Supreme (released in February 1965), unanimously regarded as his masterpiece. In June 1965 he recorded three more albums: Ascension, the revolutionary record that marked the turning point, Kulu Sé Mama and Transition (all within roughly two weeks). In October came Om, which would be released posthumously in 1967, and in November Meditations, also released in 1966, along with Live At The Village Vanguard Again!.

Just a few months later, in February 1967, he recorded Expression, released posthumously shortly after his death, though already planned with his approval.

Then there's a long list of posthumous albums recorded during these three years. Besides the aforementioned Om, it's worth mentioning a series of works essential to understanding this remarkably inspired phase: Cosmic Music (recorded in February 1966, released in 1968), Interstellar Space (recorded in 1967, released in 1974), Transition (recorded in June 1965, released in 1970), Sun Ship (recorded on August 26, 1965, released in 1971), alongside a long series of live records, among which Live In Seattle (recorded in 1965, released in 1971) and Live In Japan (recorded in 1966 and released in 1973) stand out.

This is a (not entirely exhaustive) selection of at least thirteen albums in three years that - given their quality - truly gives the sense that something miraculous was happening in Coltrane's mind. But let's start from the beginning.

A Love Supreme (1965), face to face with God

Every time I make a change I'm a bit worried it might confuse the audience. That's why I sometimes delay things. But after a while I find there's nothing else I can do but move forward

With A Love Supreme John Coltrane achieves for the first time what had been his goal for years: finding a point of encounter with God, not understood as the God of monotheistic religions, but as the idea of an absolute Good that envelops the world, pure spirit, an entity that loves infinitely and that can be found in every human culture. Coltrane's God should be understood as philosophical truth, the common denominator of everything, the essence (his own words), the primum movens, the origin of all things and therefore of every sound too.

A Love Supreme is a thirty-five-minute prayer, a mass in four movements, in which one can picture Coltrane face to face with God. It's also an act of thanksgiving following his 1957 invocation, in which he asked for the strength to overcome his drug addiction: if God helped him, he would dedicate all his talent to Him. Coltrane keeps his promise and, after years of study, manages to reach Him and look Him in the eye in order to thank Him.

The work is divided into four parts representing as many evolutionary stages on the path toward the spirit. "Acknowledgement" is a modal piece in which past wrongs are admitted and the existence of the divine spirit is recognized; in "Resolution", instead, the decision is made to dedicate one's existence to God; in "Pursuance" Coltrane keeps stubbornly pursuing his path toward the sacred, rejoicing in the truth he has learned; finally "Psalm" marks the point of arrival in the presence of the divine, the contact between the man Coltrane and God, in one of the most moving moments in all twentieth-century music.

"Acknowledgement" opens with scattered phrases of notes drifting into nothingness, almost as if warming up the instrument. Then the sound of the cymbals sets up a double bass foundation, after which the piano and a simple sax melody arrive, changing over time with ever-different timbres until it simplifies down to just four notes, anticipating Coltrane's voice chanting "A Love Supreme". "Resolution" is charged both with joy, at the discovery of true absolute, and with tension, from the need to find within himself the immense strength required to resolutely fulfill his promise. "Pursuance" discovers the joy of true knowledge and revels in being one step away from the authentic God, the one that unites every human being of any race and culture. Finally, "Psalm" is as close to spirituality as music has ever come.

A Love Supreme is the Sistine Chapel of jazz music, the finger of God touching the finger of Adam (in this case, Coltrane's).

Ascension, to infinity and beyond (1966)

After an album like that, Coltrane's own perception of music is renewed. He understands that he must now keep pursuing the path of change and evolution. Having reached an extraordinary peak, he decides to turn everything upside down and, despite his success (commercial too), he reshuffles the deck, catching everyone off guard – his most loyal listeners above all.

From Ascension (recorded in June 1965 and released in February 1966) onward, Coltrane would reach sonic extremes so radical that bebop and hard bop would come to seem like distant memories. Jazz's origins, born for dancing, would appear as something belonging to another geological era entirely. With Ascension the American musician shows he has fully absorbed the grammar of free jazz, moving from a quartet to an expanded eleven-piece ensemble that also includes Archie Shepp. The title alone hints at the message: music must lead to self-improvement, certainly to an ascent toward spirituality, but also – and in this case above all – to an awakening to the reality of racial discrimination. Malcolm X had been assassinated on May 19, 1965, dreams of democratic change were growing harder to sustain, and Coltrane wanted Ascension to carry the same force as a speech by Martin Luther King or the novels of African American writers James Baldwin and Richard Wright.

If A Love Supreme was the spiritual record par excellence, the record of dialogue with God, Ascension is Coltrane's political work (after "Alabama"), the one in which he asks God to stop contemplating his own perfection and intervene directly in the world of men to help him in his struggle. The saxophones and trumpets (five saxophonists and two trumpeters play on it) scream their pain at the top of their lungs, turning the listening experience into an assault on the listener, who comes out of it stunned. The chaos, the layering of instruments, the improvisations create a generalized disorientation that leaves one speechless.

For Coltrane, music must no longer seek the listener's approval, must no longer indulge their certainties: it must transform them into a new man, better and more aware. Music must allow, precisely, an ascension.

If A Love Supreme is the Sistine Chapel, Ascension is the "The Scream" by Munch of jazz music. The reception is negative, with many calling it anti-jazz, others describing it as meaningless noise. His most loyal listeners don't understand it, and many abandon him. Even the musicians in his band can no longer keep up with him. In truth, Coltrane has by now gone so far ahead that he is no longer comprehensible to his contemporaries: he is truly in another world, while those listening still have both feet firmly on the ground.

Coltrane's farewell. Kulu Sé Mama, Meditations, Expression (1966-1967)

After Ascension Coltrane becomes a legend for the so-called New Thing, that group of musicians who, through free jazz, sought to overturn the basic rules of the music produced up to that point (in 1966 the live album New Thing At Newport, performed together with Archie Shepp, is released). The shift delights those who see in him an intellectual fully committed to the African American struggle. Others – including musicians of the caliber of Miles Davis or Charles Mingus – are less enthusiastic. What is certain is that Coltrane can no longer turn back, and this creates various problems for him at concerts, where organizers insistently ask him to play his old songs, something he can no longer bring himself to accept. 

I almost never listen to my old records, I'm far more interested in what I'm playing right now

In the year and a half he has left to live (from February 1966 to July 1967), John Coltrane releases three magnificent albums in which he continues to experiment with free sonorities, while also recording a great deal of material, both live and in the studio, that would be released posthumously.

Kulu Sé Mama, recorded on June 10, 1965 (that is, just a few days before Ascension and on the same day as Transition) and released in January 1967, opens with a radical return to the African motherland (the title track) featuring an expanded lineup, the voice of American singer Juno Lewis, and the second saxophone of Pharoah Sanders. It's a primordial chaos played with no fewer than two drummers (something Coltrane's longtime drummer Elvin Jones doesn't appreciate), two saxophones, a clarinet and a double bass, in which the free jazz avant-garde merges with a search for the origins of African music. Elvin Jones leaves because he can no longer understand Coltrane's music: he will be replaced by Rashied Ali.

Meditations (1966) is a very different work from both A Love Supreme and Ascension, yet it somehow represents a meeting point between the two. A track like "The Father And The Son And The Holy Ghost" indeed unleashes the two saxophones' powerful dissonances, but still feels more approachable, emphasizing the religious dimension typical of A Love Supreme. Chaos and improvisation certainly dominate, but Coltrane wants to deepen his mystical vision, imagining a God who continuously shapes the Universe, confirming a pantheistic outlook. The religious dimension is evident in the titles of the remaining tracks, which make Meditations appear, in every respect, as a free jazz evolution of A Love Supreme.

Meanwhile, Coltrane's illness becomes increasingly debilitating. Liver failure – caused by cirrhosis and liver cancer – drastically limits his ability to write new material. After a few memorable tours (particularly the one in Japan in July 1966), his concert activity dwindles to almost nothing, and in his final months he turns down every offer.

The last work acknowledged by Coltrane is Expression (1967), which became posthumous due to his unexpected death, but which would have been, to all intents and purposes, his new album. His lifelong companion, pianist McCoy Tyner, had also left the group and was replaced by the composer's second wife, Alice Coltrane.

Expression is Coltrane's last gift to humanity before leaving it prematurely. His increasingly severe illness and the feeling that he wouldn't make it far enough to complete his mission make this final work especially pained and mournful. The sixteen minutes of "To Be" have something placid and bucolic about them, almost like a detached vision of the afterlife. For the first (and last) time, Coltrane plays flute on the record, alongside Pharoah Sanders. The two flutes wander freely, never quite settling into a real melody, which only heightens the extremely ethereal feel of the piece. We're a long way from the call to arms of Ascension: Coltrane clearly sees his own end approaching, and the title "To Be" can come across as both mockingly ironic and a final act of faith toward God. Even the gorgeous title track, built on a bed of piano beneath the sax, initially drifts into similarly hushed atmospheres before returning to free improvisation.

The posthumous albums (1968-1974)

On July 17, 1967, John Coltrane died in New York, leaving everyone who had known and followed him devastated. But his artistic legacy didn't end there, because over the years he had left behind an enormous amount of recordings that he had chosen not to release, or had simply postponed and which had then fallen into oblivion. If we add to this the live recordings, the material becomes truly overwhelming, all of it recovered over the years by the labels he had worked with: Prestige, Atlantic and Impulse!.

Here we point out the most significant works. Leaving aside the exhaustive compilations from Prestige and Atlantic, which cover material from the '50s, it's best to focus on the recordings from his final years. One of his finest posthumous albums is Transition, recorded during the same sessions as Kulu Sé Mama, about ten days before Ascension, and later released in 1970. As the title suggests, it's a perfect transitional album between the spiritual side and the free side of Coltrane, much like Meditations (1966) had been. The title track fully captures the iconoclastic free-jazz fury, while "Dear Lord" is a new prayer that returns to the idioms of traditional jazz. This odd pairing seems to depict the two different souls of a personality torn between two masterpiece albums that are irreconcilable with one another. Coltrane has to choose whether to continue his career along the lines of A Love Supreme or Ascension. And of course, he could only choose the more avant-garde path.

Right after his death, Om was released (a single twenty-nine-minute track recorded in 1965 and put out in 1967), a record of extraordinary historical importance that Coltrane himself hadn't wanted to release, feeling it wasn't up to par. In 1965 the American musician had begun occasionally taking LSD, believing, like many artists of the era, that it might open up new musical possibilities for him. Om is therefore a typical product of the counterculture of the 1960s, presenting a Coltrane who remained ever attentive to the shifts in society, in a work steeped in Eastern culture (Om is the Buddhist word denoting the origin of everything, the first sound of the Universe), but also in new psychedelic sonorities. This lysergic, cacophonous free jazz (the Om screams mark an utterly visionary moment in Coltrane's career) turns out to be so hallucinated that it almost unsettled him on listening back, leading him to shelve the project.

Following a similar path is Cosmic Music (1968), featuring two decidedly free Coltrane recordings from 1966 ("Manifestation" and "Reverend King") and two by his wife from 1968: Sun Ship – recorded in August 1965 (immediately after Ascension) and released in 1971 – is a particularly tragic work that never finds any peace, even on a track like "Amen," from which one might expect less aggressive sonorities.

This hypothetical cosmic trilogy devoted to the Universe, understood as the God who created everything, comes to a close with Interstellar Space, recorded in February 1967 (truly just a step away from the end) and released in 1974, an unusual record in that it was cut as a duo by Coltrane, together with drummer Rashied Ali. A fun anecdote has circulated about it: Ali showed up at the recording session without knowing he was the only musician Coltrane had called in; within a few minutes he was given a rough outline of what to do, and the record was born out of pure duo improvisation. The result is a work of tremendous spontaneity and intensity which is, sadly, John Coltrane's last studio recording.

In 1972, Alice Coltrane reworked Cosmic Music, releasing it as Infinity (1972), changing the track titles and overdubbing strings, piano, organ, vibraphone and bells. The idea is certainly questionable, especially considering that jazz is, by definition, instinctive music, born from the musician's state of mind in that exact moment, and therefore unique and unrepeatable. Alice Coltrane thus draws on ideas borrowed from rock music, but John Coltrane's spirit and spontaneity end up so watered down that they all but vanish.

The posthumous live albums

As for the posthumous live albums, at least two deserve mention. Live In Seattle, recorded in 1965 and released in 1971, is one of his most powerful and raucous performances, reaching truly deafening volumes. Listening to it is an experience that largely captures what it must have felt like for the lucky few who were in the right place at the right time. The screaming saxophones of Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders on "Cosmos" and "Out Of This World" (twenty-four minutes) and the endless improvisations of "Evolution" (thirty-five minutes) stand as unique testimony to what Coltrane had managed to achieve within the space of just a few years.

Equally powerful, with his new and final lineup, is Live In Japan, a document of his 1966 tour of Japan, where he was greeted like a rockstar from the moment he landed - something that had never happened to him before in his career. As if to say thank you, Coltrane gives his all on sprawling, river-like versions of "My Favorite Things" (fifty-seven minutes), "Crescent" (fifty-four minutes), "Leo" (forty-four minutes) and "Peace On Earth" (twenty-four minutes), showing an ability to keep varying and improvising for stretches of time that could seemingly go on forever.

Man or saint?

After his death, Coltrane became, in some cases, an object of veneration. A congregation called the Yardbird Temple in San Francisco, affiliated with the African Orthodox Church, began worshipping him as a new messiah and regards Charlie "Yardbird" Parker as a new John the Baptist. In this church, Coltrane's music and lyrics are an integral part of the liturgy, and there is even a sanctified image of the musician on display.

During his tour of Japan, a journalist asked him what he thought he'd be doing in the years to come. Coltrane thought it over and replied that he would have liked to become a saint. Today we can say that, having seen God, John achieved his goal.

Bibliography

Jazz. La vicenda e i protagonisti della musica afro-americana. Arrigo Polillo (1975, Mondadori)

Ascension. Vita e musiche di John Coltrane. Eric Nisenson (2002, Testo & Immagine)

Una storia del jazz. Piero Scaruffi (2008)

Coltrane secondo Coltrane. Tutte le interviste. A cura di Chris DeVito (2010, EDT/Siena Jazz)

La filosofia di John Coltrane. Giacomo Ghidelli (2018, Mimesis)

Rebus Musicae. Michele Saran (2020, Digressioni)

Storia del jazz. Ted Gioia (2021, EDT/Siena Jazz)

John Coltrane. Aldo Gianolio e Piercarlo Poggio. (2024, Tuttle/Blow Up)

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google