I had a brief conversation about John Coltrane with saxophonist Joel Johansen last night and it conjured up some things that I haven’t thought of in a while.
There is a very spiritual quality to Coltrane’s music. If I remember right, in the liner notes for the album “A Love Supreme”, he talks about how he was trying to describe his spiritual feelings and experience through music.
I did a little web searching to explore the spiritual connection to Coltrane’s music and I found a site from the Saint John Coltrane Church in San Francisco. Here is an excerpt from the mission statement.
Our primary mission at the St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church is to bring souls to Christ; to know sound as the preexisting wisdom of God, and to understand the divine nature of our patron saint in terms of his ascension as a high soul into one-ness with God through sound. In our praises we too seek such a relationship with God. We have come to understand John Coltrane in terms of his sound and as sound in meditative union with God.
The ascension of St. John Coltrane into one-ness with God is what we refer to as the Risen Trane. In dealing with the Saint, John Coltrane, we are not dealing with St. John the man but St. John the sound and St. John the Evangelist and Sound Baptist, who attained union with God through sound. From the standpoint of the biography of John Coltrane, the Risen Trane is the post 1957 John Coltrane. He who emerged from drug addiction onto a path of spiritual awakening and who gave testimony of the power and empowerment of grace of God in his life and in his Psalm on A Love Supreme, and in his music thereafter. (“At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music. I feel this has been granted through His grace. ALL PRAISE TO GOD.”) We, too, having been touched by this anointed sound and being called and chosen by the Holy Ghost, endeavor to carry the holy ambition and mantle of sound baptism of St. John Coltrane.
The church was named the “hippest church” by Life magazine and the BBC did a documentary about it in 2004. I guess I’m out of the loop. Actually, I have never heard of this type of thing before; a church bestowing sainthood on a musician or, any type of artist, and naming itself after him. I am sure there is probably a “Church of Elvis” or something along those lines but, the Coltrane Church appears to be very serious about what they are doing. If any of you have actually been there or know of something similar, let me know.
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Tags: John Coltrane, St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church
Pat Darnell and Friends wrote,
In history of churches, this stands out prominently. You see the first Christians were persecuted like crazy. To be called Christian, meant treason, floggings and severe punishments; and there is no indication that the Christians were into s and m…
The AOC is founded on the repulsion of discrimination by the Protestant Episcopal Church. It is a similar history to the Coptic Christians of the Nile, in Egypt. What ever channel it comes down, the truer history of churches is that they seem to always split. It is like a living cell division of the most remarkable kind. Every organized church moves from newness to splitting stages, as if that is part of the rules from Moses himself.
In the life of a person it remains a universal truth that there is a time when “theological terminology is not defined” and a time when “this strangeness falls away and a new understanding of things occurs.” In a lot of cases the divining person has a problem defining Jesus’ seemingly dual nature; is He God or is He a man? “His nature is an abstraction: two united in one,” so said leaders in around 449. It was described and distributed in a written letter called the “Dogmatic Letter” by Leo I, Roman pope at the time.
I think that Mr Coltrane pursued perfection as anyone in his position would, then he confronted the pride of providing quality every time he entertained…
In J Coltrane’s journey, he went full tilt as a man, and when he moved away from his own man nature he burrowed into the AOC. Not unusual either. The AOC is a heavy hitter, and has not split as other protesting churches. It seems to have grown and branched off. From a link some where above in your post:
I am sure there is probably a “Church of Elvis” or something along those lines but, the Coltrane Church appears to be very serious about what they are doing. If any of you have actually been there or know of something similar, let me know. I’ll do more reading and get back to this one… eh?
Elvis started out as a Gospel singer/ entertainer… so he is probably baptized somewhere from pre-teens. Coltrane’s experience took on a very different path even if he too was a young patron. Let me check on that..
Link | August 23rd, 2008 at 8:39 pm