John Coltrane, the fearlessly adventurous saxophonist whose music continues to transport and inspire spiritually seeking artists and audiences in jazz and beyond nearly six decades after his death, would have turned 100 tomorrow.
The Coltrane centenary is being celebrated around the U.S. and the world, and especially in Philadelphia, his adopted hometown. Here, a Coltrane 100 celebration that has been ongoing all year has picked up steam this month and kicks into high gear this week with concerts, movies screenings, and various events.
Coltrane moved to Philadelphia from High Point, N.C., in 1943, following his mother north. After a stint in the Navy, he bought the house at 1511 N. 33rd St. in Strawberry Mansion, where he would later famously kick his heroin addiction and develop the groundbreaking “sheets of sound” method of playing on his landmark 1960 album Giant Steps.
“John Coltrane learned his craft in Philadelphia,” says Ravi Coltrane, his saxophonist son, speaking to The Inquirer this week from California, where he was set to play in Los Angeles on the night of the 100th anniversary of his father’s birth.
“He played countless gigs there, and he became a saxophonist like no other in that town, where he bought his first home, where he lived with his first wife, Naima. He lived there with his mother, my grandmother, and that home still exists as a kind of symbol of John and his legacy.”
“Everything he was able to do, he did in the city of Philadelphia, and I’m grateful that the town is recognizing him more and more.”
Celebrations for a Philly master
The surge of Philadelphia pride in Coltrane’s deep connections to the city are evident. City Council has declared Sept. 23 John Coltrane Day. Temple University’s WRTI-FM (90.1) will play nothing but ‘Trane, all day long, and the radio station is also presenting a free A Love Supreme concert with Jaleel Shaw, Alexander Claffy, and Jeff “Tain” Watts in LOVE Park.
Ars Nova Workshop’s Coltrane 100 five-day concert series at the Mandell Theater at Drexel University kicks off Wednesday with Sun Ra Arkestra and includes performances through the weekend by Terri Lyne Carrington, Marilyn Crispell, Tyshawn Sorey, and the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, among others.
On Wednesday at noon, the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz will present a free screening of the 2016 documentary Chasing Trane. On Friday, Chicago sax player Isaiah Collier will perform in a free concert at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
From Friday through Sunday, Scribe Video Center will present North Philadelphia History Festival: The John Coltrane Edition, a multisite series of film screening, video exhibitions, and performances.
And on Sunday, you can ride the Chasing Trane: A Tour of John Coltrane’s North Philadelphia bus with All That Philly Jazz historian Faye Anderson. All these events and more are compiled at jazzphiladelphia.org/coltrane.
Ravi Coltrane has no memories of his father, who died of liver cancer at 40 in 1967, when his son was 2 years old. As an adult, Ravi has forged his own identity as a musician while also honoring his mother, Alice Coltrane, and his father, whose music he performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Highmark Mann in July.
Alice Coltrane’s music will be celebrated on Saturday as part of the Ars Nova concert headlined by Wilkins and include a performance by Ravi’s stepsister, Sita Michelle Coltrane.
The renovation of the Strawberry Mansion home
As executor and steward of the Coltrane Estate, Ravi Coltrane has overseen the restoration of the Coltrane house, where Mary Alexander, his father’s cousin who is immortalized as “Cousin Mary” on Giant Steps, lived until a few years before her death in 2019.
With a working group that includes Ars Nova’s Mark Christman and Anthony Tidd, and many local partners, Ravi and the Coltrane Estate have overseen the restoration of the facade of the house, which had fallen into serious disrepair.
“The whole building was crumbling,” Coltrane says. “We’ve done everything we can to shore up the foundation. But we really wanted the facade to be restored first to show the city that this landmark is a vibrant part of this town.”
He hopes the house, which he frequently visited as a child, can become “a cultural center” and “a place that can inspire young people as a symbol of what’s creatively possible.”
Coltrane history is Philadelphia history
Among the many projects released in conjunction with the centenary is Coltrane: The Definitive Visual Celebration of the Legend, a gorgeous photo book of images by photographers Chuck Stewart, Francis Wolff, and others, that includes essays by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Carlos Santana, and Patti Smith.
In Ravi Coltrane’s foreword, he writes of a lucid dream he had of hoping to see his father perform at Mitten Hall at Temple University in November 1966, just 8 months before his death. An album, Offering: Live at Temple University, was issued in 2014.
In the dream, Ravi Coltrane woke before getting to see his father play.
“To Talk With God,” Smith’s essay in the Coltrane book, tells of trying to see the sax player at the Showboat, the basement venue on Lombard Street, as a teenager in 1963 but being refused admission because she was underage.
“I have a vague memory of descending half-lit stairs, strains of McCoy Tyner, a glimpse of Coltrane … before being escorted back into the night. I left not disappointed but ecstatic, for those precious moments were the closest I ever came to seeing Coltrane live.”
Coltrane’s appearances at the long-gone Showboat in the early 1960s as well as performances at the Jazz Gallery in New York are included in The Tiberi Tapes, a holy grail set of recordings by musician Frank Tiberi, due to be released Nov. 6 on the Impulse! label.
Christman, who founded Ars Nova in 2000, says Coltrane history is Philadelphia history.
“He buys a house in Strawberry Mansion, thanks to the G.I. Bill. Philadelphia at this point is the workshop of the world, and he gets a job in manufacturing at a sugar refinery plant. He joins a union, Local 274, one of the first African American musicians’ unions.”
Telling that story around Coltrane 100, “there is a unified force in Philadelphia right now that I have not experienced in 26 years of presenting and being part of the jazz ecosystem,” Christman says.
“There’s a sense of unity about sharing the message that Coltrane and Philadelphia are talked about together for a very long time.”
‘Just the first taste’
Along with Coltrane 100 concerts, Ars Nova is hosting talks in West Philly. On Thursday, “Remembering the Man and His Music” will feature Reggie Workman, Andrew Cyrille, and Odean Pope with Coltrane biographer Ashley Kahn at the Study at University City. The trio will then perform on a bill with Irreversible Entanglements that night.
Christman also promises programming that illuminates Coltrane’s Philadelphia legacy will continue, thanks to Ars Nova — whose home base is Solar Myth in South Philly — for the next six months to a year, with Ravi Coltrane due back in town for multiple performances.
“This is just the first taste,” he says.
‘He’s the North Star’
Before he performs with his quartet on Saturday (with guests Will Parker and Jeff “Tain” Watts), Wilkins, who was raised in Upper Darby, will participate in an “Impressions of Coltrane” conversation with Carrington and Angelika Beener on Wednesday at the Study.
Wilkins, the saxophonist who records for Blue Note Records and released three volumes of live recordings from the Village Vanguard this year, says “I feel like I’ve always known [Coltrane’s] music ever since I’ve known anything about the saxophone.”
“Even though Trane wasn’t from Philadelphia,” he says, speaking this week from Brooklyn, where he splits his time with the Cobbs Creek neighborhood in West Philly. “I think his time in Philadelphia really has a profound impact on the city.
“His ethos and how he conceptually approached his process of playing. What that means materially is people at jam sessions playing these long, like 30-minute modal compositions. Whereas if you go to New York, you’re hearing something from the Great American Songbook.”
Coltrane, Wilkins says, “shows you that more work actually gets us closer to the divine. He’s the North Star, for sure.”
“The thing that is really spectacular about John Coltrane is that though he takes these solos that are so long. Like 20-minute solos, that could read as egregious. But there’s this interiority that’s so profound. The music is imbued with humility. It doesn’t sound selfish at all.”
Coltrane 100 continues this week, with many events throughout the fall. More information at jazzphiladelphia.org.
