I’ve written a ton about John Coltrane, easily one of my all-time sources of light, love, and inspiration. But to tackle such a giant, creatively? It’s part of a project I’ve spent the last few years working on (more on that soon), and it’s been at once challenging and gratifying to celebrate (and interrogate) many of our cultural legends, many of whom should be household names but, sadly, are not. I’m extra grateful to Jerry Jazz Musician (a site and resource for jazz aficionados I heartily endorse) for publishing this tribute to John Coltrane in their autumn edition.
John Coltrane’s Cancer
Coltrane’s calling: all he did was everything
In his power, throwing sparks at the darkness,
Extolling what he alone conceived—the Divine
Alchemy of his own design, sheets of sound
with no barriers between pursuance, his spirit,
and interstellar space, this gift a supreme kind
Of Love.
But like some indefatigable oyster, filtering
the sins from a fathomless sea, he transformed,
instigating storms no human being can contain.
And like any authentic prophet, with fire cloaked
as expression, every revelation must supersede
the messenger, even mortality, ever insatiable as
It Is.
And so, those bilious juices grew emboldened,
their corrosive wake drowning him in everything
he tried not to be, leaving him earthbound and
anchored, even as his soul strained, relentlessly
toward infinity. And death, etiolated in the end,
silenced him much as a passing shadow consumes
The Sun.
