“We are Coltrane-conscious…God dwells in the musical majesty of his sounds.” – Rev. F. W. King, of the African Orthodox Church of Saint John Coltrane.
John Willian Coltrane was born in his parents’ apartment in Hamlet, North Carolina. His mother was Alice (Blair) and his father was John R. Coltrane.
In 1930, John Coltrane and his parents lived at 118 Underwood Avenue, High Point, NC, the home of his maternal grandparents William and Alace Blair. William was a Methodist minister. John Sr. was a tailor, and his wife was a seamstress. Jobs of the neighbors included janitor, truck driver, house cleaner, and cook. Every person on the list had been born in North or South Carolina. Half owned their homes, and half rented.
Later life
John’s father and grandparents all died in 1938/1939. In 1943, the family moved to Philadelphia where John worked in a sugar refinery. His mother bought him his first saxophone at age 17, and by 1945 he was working as a professional musician with a piano player and a guitar player in a cocktail lounge trio. That year, he saw Charlie Parker perform. He later told Downbeat Magazine “The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.”
He enlisted in the Navy on August 6, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He was eventually posted to Pearl Harbor where, in addition to performing regular sailor duties such as security and kitchen details, he played with the base swing band, The Melody Masters. He was one of the few Navy men to serve as a musician without a musician’s rating. The band was an all-white band and Coltrane was listed as a guest performer. His first recordings were done in Hawaii with Navy musicians. He was discharged in 1946 with the American Campaign Medal, Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal and returned to Philadelphia to begin his music career.
That career is too big to be summarized here. His Wikipedia page covers it in detail including information about a huge number of musicians he played with such as:
- King Kolax
- Jimmie Heath
- Eddie Vinson
- Dizzy Gillespie
- Earl Bostic
- Johnny Hodges
- Miles Davis
- Thelonious Monk
Coltrane was raised in a Christian home. Both of his grandfathers were African Methodist Episcopal Zion ministers. He began to struggle with heroin addiction and alcoholism around 1948. In 1957, he had a spiritual awakening and declared “I believe in all religions.”
At the age of 40 in 1967, Coltrane died of liver cancer. Frederick J. Spencer stated that despite Coltrane’s “spiritual awakening” in 1957, “[b]y then, he may have had chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis … Unless he developed a primary focus elsewhere in later life and that spread to his liver, the seeds of John Coltrane’s cancer were sown in his days of addiction.” Miles David said “Coltrane’s death shocked everyone, took everyone by surprise. I knew he hadn’t looked too good … But I didn’t know he was that sick—or even sick at all.”
After Coltrane’s death, a congregation called the Yardbird Temple in San Francisco began worshiping him as God incarnate. The group was named after Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, whom they equated to John the Baptist. After affiliating with the African Orthodox Church, the group had to change Coltrane’s status from God to Saint. The St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church incorporates Coltrane’s music and his lyrics as prayers in its liturgy.
The John Coltrane House in Philadelphia is designated a National Historic Landmark.
Other happenings on September 23,1926:
- Gene Tunney defeated Jack Dempsey by unanimous decision to win the world heavyweight boxing championship in Philadelphia.
- The United States negotiated an armistice in the Nicaraguan Civil War; President Emiliano Chamorro Vargas agreed to resign so the Nicaraguan Congress could select a new president.
Tomorrow – A photographer who got close to the subject
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Sources
- Wikipedia.org
- Ancestry.com
- Onthisday.com
- Picryl.com
- Youtube.com
Famous People and Their First Census 