A Love Supreme

An Ode to John Coltrane

Yesterday, I had an idea for a post. When an idea comes, I start to write it in my mind. When a rough draft forms in my mind, which is something akin to a full-circle thought, then I know I need to write it. This is the same for everything I write (short stories, poems, and novels). Yesterday I was exploring my idea when I got a text. I was working, not yet putting on an audiobook. And instantly I stopped.

I cried there in the office, but no one noticed. And I switched on an audiobook to distract myself from the inevitable onslaught of everything coming my way. The audiobook was 3 Shades of Blue, a group biography on Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans leading up to and following their incredible album Kind of Blue.

Today, on the anniversary of Coltrane’s untimely death, I listened to A Love Supreme and finished the book.

Given my long history of loving jazz, I cannot tell you when I first heard Coltrane. But I can tell you when I first really heard Coltrane. It was In A Sentimental Mood. It randomly popped up on a jazz playlist I was shuffling through on Spotify, and it stopped me dead in its tracks. I’d never heard, and still have not heard, anyone play like Coltrane. Evidently, it’s obvious this song is special to me as it’s literally the name of this substack. And, given my love for my home city, I’m sure you can imagine how over the moon I was to discover Coltrane lived much of his life in Philadelphia and performed around there. In that one song, I quickly became a lifelong fan.

When A Love Supreme came out, critics claimed that it was the Death of Jazz. Many argued that Coltrane, through his ‘free jazz’ was destroying the already dying genre. The evolution of jazz from the early days in the 20s to what became a surprise classic A Love Supreme is slow. Jazz was a pure expression from Black Americans, a repercussion of years of slavery and civil liberties being taken. Jazz was pain. Then it was swing. Then it was dancing. In the biography 3 Shades of Blue, it was noted how important dance was to jazz. I don’t want to falsely credit it here, but to poorly paraphrase the argument was that dancing was vital to Black American culture as a means to deal with the generational trauma of slavery. As a Latina, I can resonate with this.

But then came Bebop. And you couldn’t dance to Bebop (unless you were Thelonious Monk, anyway). From Bebop came Cool Jazz (Miles Davis), West Coast Jazz (Chet Baker), and eventually, what we call now Free Jazz. But at the same time that jazz was growing and morphing, it would go on to inspire other forms of music. Suddenly, Elvis Presley was singing his cover of Hound Dog on television, and Rock & Roll (which, like Jazz, originated among Black Americans) hit the scene.

One of the important points to understanding about the music world Coltrane was occupying is that much of the popular music of that day (again, Rock & Roll) was originally written by black musicians and given to white singers to make it more ‘acceptable’ to a white audience. There were those who refused to do this (Buddy Holly, namely, who insisted on writing his own music), but it became the standard. For every black singer ready to write music that spoke to their lives at that time, there were white singers ready to cash in on their work.

While white musicians and singers had joined the jazz scene largely since the 40s (particularly during the Big Band Era), it was still a predominantly Black run industry of music. This is also the reason why heroin was such a hot commodity among jazz musicians. Jazz musicians were seen as the lowest of the low, even in the heat of the 40s, and counted themselves among drug users in the totem pole of social respectability. Coltrane himself was addicted to heroin and was kicked out of Miles Davis’ Quintet until he got sober (which he did while working with Thelonious Monk). 

On top of that, Coltrane was coming out of the incredible high that was making Kind of Blue, which has gone on to be one of the most celebrated jazz albums of all time. While working with both Monk and Davis, he started to form into the Coltrane of legend. He was sober, serious, and ever the artist.

Coltrane was not out to make a best-selling jazz album. He wasn’t interested in where the money was going the way Davis was. His work is more an extension of his rich internal world. Towards the end of the first song in A Love Supreme, he repeats the name of the album again and again and again. This, paired with the strange almostuncomfortable song, is saying something: it goes on and on and on. There’s this feeling when you listen to A Love Supreme that it’s enduring, meaning never going to end. I always find that I listen with this idea in mind until I reach the end, baffled but anticipating it. In many ways, it’s something like a relationship that slips out from under you. I’m always surprised and devastated that it’s ending. I always want more.

Coltrane didn’t live long enough to see how his unconventional jazz would truly transform music, and it most certainly did. His work in the 60s before his death was strange and uncomfortable, but one you want to devour. I read once that someone said of Coltrane that he worked ‘25 hours a day.’ Or maybe it was 24. It doesn’t matter, the image is clear. I adore people like that who are so dedicated to their art.

I like to think my obsession with Coltrane is our mutual connection to Philadelphia. Maybe I know more about music than I know (which is nothing. I cannot read music and never learned an instrument). But I think what draws me in the most is the clear dedication he puts into his work, the way in which he invites us into his world and gives it his all.

In the midst of sudden bad news, I turned to Coltrane. I lost myself in his world. I know when I get out it’ll hurt, and I’ll have to face the ugly things of the world, but for now, I’m staying put. For now, I’m enduring a love supreme.