Saint John Coltrane

Coltrane was certainly a miracle of human potential. He was only a man, but he was way out in front of the other people plying the same trade, the trade of trying to make a living by playing jazz music. I love many of the musicians contemporaneous to Trane, but really, there's Trane, and there's everyone else. When it was Trane's turn to solo, he immediately exploded into a dimension that was unfamiliar to the other musicians. The question of, “what can I do to compete with that?” quickly became, “what the hell is that he's doing?” John Coltrane was on another level.

It's not surprising that many fans caught the scent of the divine in Trane's music.

Something like this had happened before with Charlie “Yardbird” (generally “Bird”) Parker. A church arose around the worship of Bird, with Bird's music as the sacrament. I'm going to number the names of some churches herein to make the changes easier to follow:

Number One, “The Yardbird Temple Vanguard Revolutionary Church of the Hour.” This was in San Francisco during the 1960s.

It may help to recall that John Coltrane was born in September, 1926, and he died in July, 1967.

At some point in the sixties, a nice couple in Oakland decided that there was no better way to spend a Saturday than listening to Coltrane records on a big hi-fi in their garage. With the door open; neighbors welcome. Before long, the crowds were growing. In light of Trane's death, the divinity angle started to come into focus. In 1969, they declared themselves a congregation and purchased the Yardbird Temple, calling the new church:

Number Two, “The Saint John Coltrane Church of San Francisco” (1969).

This went on fine for about ten years, but there was some kind of court battle in 1981. The Saint John Coltrane church was taken over and renamed, “The One Mind Temple Evolutionary Transitional Church of Christ.”

Wasting no time, the Coltrane church reorganized themselves and opened at a new location as the:

Number Three, “The Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church” (1982).

This church may still be there for all I know. They have about eighty saints, with Coltrane occupying the top spot. They create beautiful icons for each of the saints, nicely done and very ornate in a very Eastern-Orthodox manner, featuring lots of gold. The Trane icon is labeled:

“Saint John Will-I-Am Coltrane.”

I personally do not approve of religion in general, but this one can claim a much more direct connection to the divine than most. The music, of course.