A Bite of John Coltrane 🍪
The transcendent musician who reached sainthood
Monday Bites are bite-sized musician spotlights & playlists by Grace Lilly.
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🏆 A top-read post
• 3 min read •
John Coltrane was more than a musician
He was an innovator, a seeker of universal truth, an endlessly curious learner, and to some, literally God incarnate.
Fascinated by world religions, astrology, and philosophy, he believed that music was a vehicle for a greater good, an opportunity to have a larger impact.
He wanted to do more than just entertain. Coltrane’s goal was “to uplift people” and “inspire them to realize more and more their capacities for living meaningful lives.”
It worked. Decades of musicians and fans alike have cited Coltrane as a profoundly inspiring force. Influencing a variety of genres like funk, psychedelic rock (The Doors’ “Light My Fire” was based on Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things”), and pop, he created “a world of sound” that’s still relevant today.
The modern concept of music serving a deeply connective, spiritual purpose exists largely thanks to him. John Coltrane was on a search for universal truth through his music, and he found it.
John Coltrane
The basics
🤝 American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader
🤝 b. 1926 (Hamlet, North Carolina) - d. 1967 (Huntington, New York)
🤝 A pioneer of modal jazz and free jazz, his sound is still recognizable
Why you should know him: Known for his otherworldly skill, curiosity and innovation, John Coltrane helped shape the sound of more than just jazz — his influence spans over decades, genres, styles, and transcends cultural boundaries
If you like
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Known for
🏆 Being a master of the saxophone, one of the best to play both tenor and soprano saxophones
🏆 Performing individual songs live for 30 minutes to an hour each
🏆 Collaborating with musical icons Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk
🏆 The spiritual influence in his music and his global religious exploration
🏆 Receiving numerous posthumous awards, including a special Pulitzer Prize, 2 Grammy Awards, and being canonized by the African Orthodox Church
Bite-sized facts
🍪 Was raised by his mother and cousin after his father, aunt, and grandparents died within a few months of one another
🍪 For his 17th birthday, his mother bought him his first saxophone and he started taking lessons
🍪 At 19, enlisted in the Navy to avoid being drafted; made his first music recordings as a sailor during an informal session in Hawaii in 1946
🍪 Returned to Philadelphia’s bustling jazz scene and enrolled in music school
🍪 Becomes fanatical about developing his craft, practicing “25 hours a day,” often falling asleep with the horn still in his mouth
🍪 Joined the Miles Davis Quartet at 29 and got his first solo record deal at 31
🍪 Had a “spiritual awakening” in 1957, helped him overcome heroin addiction and alcoholism that he’d battled since age 22
🍪 Had a musical family — married pianist & harpist Alice Coltrane, had 3 children together: John Jr., a bassist; Ravi, a saxophonist; and Oran, a saxophonist, guitarist, drummer and singer
🍪 Started experimenting with improvised melody and harmony in the 60s, influenced by Indian classical music
🍪 Died at age 40 of liver cancer in 1967, surprising many in the music community who didn’t know he was sick
🍪 In 1990, fellow musician Robert Palmer made a documentary about him called The World According to John Coltrane
Spirituality
✧₊⁺ Coltrane’s music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension over the course of his career
✧₊⁺ Explored astrology, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Islam, African history, and the philosophical teachings of Aristotle and Plato
✧₊⁺ There’s speculation that he started using LSD in 1965, which influenced the “cosmic” transcendence of his late period
✧₊⁺ Many of his album & song names had spiritual connotations: Ascension, Meditations, Om, Selflessness, “Amen,” “Ascent,” “Attaining,” “Dear Lord,” “Prayer and Meditation Suite,” and “The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost”
✧₊⁺ His spiritual journey was interwoven with his investigation of world music, believed in a universal musical structure that transcended ethnic distinctions
St. John Coltrane Church
🪽 After his death, a congregation in San Francisco began worshipping him as God incarnate
🪽 In 1969, this congregation became The St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church and Coltrane’s status was changed from a god to a saint
🪽 The church incorporates Coltrane's music and his lyrics as prayers in its liturgy, specifically using A Love Supreme (1965) as a liturgical text
🪽 The church holds weekly “sound baptisms” that focus on Coltrane's later albums, monthly guided meditations, and weekly Masses that include jazz jams
Beliefs
Coltrane was a saint who ascended to oneness with God through sound
Coltrane’s music was a channel for the spirit of Christ
Coltrane’s message was one of racial, social, and economic justice
Sound is the preexisting wisdom of God
Samuel G. Freedman wrote in The New York Times that
... the Coltrane church is not a gimmick or a forced alloy of nightclub music and ethereal faith. Its message of deliverance through divine sound is actually quite consistent with Coltrane’s own experience and message... Addicted to heroin in the 1950s, he quit cold turkey, and later explained that he had heard the voice of God during his anguishing withdrawal... In 1966, an interviewer in Japan asked Coltrane what he hoped to be in five years, and Coltrane replied, “A saint.”
Songs & dates
♫ 1958 “Blue Train,” “Lazy Bird,” and “Moment’s Notice” from Blue Train, often considered his best album from this period, become standards
♫ 1959 Records his favorite composition, “Naima,” a love ballad to honor his wife
♫ 1960 The harmonically complex “Giant Steps” becomes one of his most acclaimed recordings
♫ 1965 Releases the best-selling A Love Supreme, a four-part ode to his faith in and love for God
♫ 1968 Om is posthumously released, contains chants from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita and the Buddhist Tibetan Book of the Dead
♫ 1982 Bye Bye Blackbird receives a posthumous Grammy for Best Jazz Solo Performance
He said
⭐ “I know that there are bad forces, forces that bring suffering to others and misery to the world. I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good.”
⭐ “I believe in all religions. The truth itself doesn’t have any name on it to me, and each man has to find it for himself.”
⭐ “I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music.”
John Coltrane Playlist
I gathered my fav Coltrane songs, from me to you with love. Like & save on Spotify and listen all week 💗
Where to start
Playing with Miles Davis
Watch a 33-year-old John Coltrane perform “So What” with Miles Davis as part of the Miles Davis Quintet (Coltrane at 2:38)
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His most acclaimed album
Coltrane playing from his best-selling album A Love Supreme live with his quartet at the Festival International de Jazz à Antibes in 1965
Down the rabbit hole
If you wanna dive even deeper:
Chasing Trane (2016)
An exploration of the global power and impact of the music of John Coltrane where the passions, experiences and forces that shaped his life and revolutionary sounds are revealed, including commentary from Denzel Washington, Carlos Santana, Cornel West, and more.
Watch on Youtube, Amazon, Apple TV, Tubi, or Google Play.
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This is terrific! I just recently found your newsletter and I'm really digging this Coltrane piece, looking forward to diving into the playlist!