86 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • FEBRUARY 2019
REAR VIEW
JOHN COLTRANE
SPEAKING TO OUR SOULS
By ANNIE WILKINSON
From the outside, the suburban
Dix Hills home looks like many other
ranch-style structures that dot Long
Island.
But this modest Candlewood Path
house has a distinctive history: In
1964, in the upstairs practice room,
homeowner John Coltrane composed
his Grammy award-winning album A
Love Supreme. The work’s spiritual
tone captured the essence of a world
protesting war amid the emerging
pride of African Americans seeking
to honor their heritage and contributions
to American culture.
Coltrane’s composition changed the
world of jazz forever. But the road to
success was an uneven path for the
jazz saxophonist, bandleader, and
composer, blockaded by the pressures
of performing and the ravages
of drug addiction.
A QUIET VOLCANO
His music was sometimes called
“volcanic,” but interviewers called
him thoughtful and conscientious.
He emphasized the best in others and
was noted for being a quiet, gentle
man.
His bandmate Miles Davis observed,
“…It was like he was possessed
when he put that horn in his mouth.
He was so passionate — fierce — and
yet so quiet and gentle when he wasn't
playing.”
Those bold sounds are still popular
after 60-plus years. Coltrane
described his motivations by saying,
“I’d like to point out to people the
divine in a musical language that
transcends words. I want to speak to
their souls.”
Born in 1926, John William Coltrane
grew up listening to the sounds
of the many instruments his father
played at home in North Carolina
and to Count Basie recordings. The
youngster picked up the alto saxophone
and clarinet and his mother
encouraged him to attend music
school. He was drafted in 1945 and
played with a U.S.Navy band until
1946; in 1947 he switched to tenor sax.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s,
Coltrane (nicknamed “Trane”)
performed with the prestigious Dizzy
Gillespie Orchestra and as a session
musician. “The Duke” Ellington took
notice and hired Coltrane. But, like
many other “hopheads,” Trane was a
drug addict. Ellington fired him.
Miles Davis took a chance and
hired Trane to play in his First Great
Quintet, but drugs, mainly heroin,
intervened; Davis fired and rehired
him several times.
JAZZ REHAB
Trane kicked the habit and rehabilitated
himself, undergoing a metamorphosis
just as jazz was changing.
In the late 1950s, the danceable, bigband
sound gave way to “bebop,”
densely rhythmic improvisation over
dissonant chord changes played by
small ensembles.
Trane joined pianist Thelonius
Monk’s adventurous quartet for six
months, developing an increased harmonic
and rhythmic sophistication by
playing notes simultaneously amid
cascading scales, a technique dubbed
“sheets of sound” by critic Ira Gitler.
After recording under his own name,
in 1958 Trane rejoined Davis’s group,
emphasizing scale patterns beyond
major and minor (“modal jazz”).
Starting in 1960, Trane’s acclaimed
quartet focused on mode-based improvisation,
experimenting with free
jazz and incorporating the spirituality
of music of India and Africa.
In 1964, the year Trane moved his
family to Dix Hills, he wrote A Love
Supreme. As The Guardian noted, “It
became a hit with the hippie audience
… and … rock guitarists too, notably
for the mantra-like chant inspired by
Coltrane's absorption in Indian music
and Eastern religious thought.”
The multi-award-winning big
seller brought global acclaim. His
grueling schedule — practicing 10
hours a day while touring extensively
— had a bizarre effect: He’d put
his horn down, beat on his chest and
scream into the microphone, said his
drummer Rashied Ali in 1966 in The
Sixties. Ali said Trane was inspired
by a Buddhist chant “where you could
pound your chest and it would change
the sound of your voice. He wanted to
get that quiver on the horn.”
Others said that after 1965 Trane
was using LSD. Miles Davis claimed
that the hallucinogen caused Trane’s
death at age 40 in 1967, but the cause
of death was listed as liver cancer.
In 2007, the Pulitzer Prize Board
awarded the musician a special
posthumous citation. The home
where he spent his final years
has been designated a National
Treasure by the National Trust for
Historic Preservation, which will
help renovate it as a museum and
cultural center. The designation
honors a prolific artist who left a
formidable legacy — a legacy that
will no doubt influence musicians
for decades to come.
Jazz legend John Coltrane created his landmark album A Love Supreme
in Dix Hills.
Alice Coltrane and kids at home in Dix Hills by Tadayuki Naito 1971
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
