John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the Music

by Leonard Brown

Overview

John Coltrane's unique and powerful saxophonic sound is commonly recognized among jazz scholars and fans alike as having a "spiritual" nature, imbued with the perfomer's soul, which deeply touches musicians and listeners worldwide. This revered and respected musician created new standards, linked tradition with innovation, challenged common assumptions, and relentlessly pursued spiritual goals in his music, which he aimed openly to use as a means to help listeners see the beauty of life. More than four decades after Coltrane's death, it is this spiritual nature of the music that has kept his sound alive - and thriving - on the contemporary jazz scene.

Edited by prominent jazz musician and scholar Leonard Brown, John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom is a timely exploration of Coltrane's sound and its spiritual qualities as they relate to Black American music culture and aspirations for freedom. A wide-ranging collection of essays and interviews featuring many of the most eminent figures in jazz studies and performance—Tommy Lee Lott, Anthony Brown, Herman Gray, Emmett G. Price III, Dwight Andrews, Tammy Kernodle, Salim Washington, Eric Jackson, and TJ Anderson (foreword)— the book examines the full spectrum of Coltrane's legacy. Each essay approaches this theme from a different angle, in both historical and contemporary contexts, focusing on how Coltrane became a quintessential example of the universal and enduring qualities of Black American culture. The contributors address Coltrane as the Black intellectual, the visionary master of musical syntax, the man and the media icon, and ultimately the symbol of the spiritual core of Black American music.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195328530
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	09/09/2010
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Leonard Brown is a professional saxophonist, composer and arranger, an ethnomusicologist and associate professor of African American Studies and Music at Northeastern University in Boston. He is a Ford Fellow (postdoctoral) and the recipient of distinguished scholarship awards. He served as senior consulting historian and principal ethnomusicologist for the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, MO, the first national jazz museum in the USA and is co-author of Kansas City and All That's Jazz. Brown is co-founder and producer of the John Coltrane Memorial Concert, the world's oldest annual performance tribute to Coltrane, established in Boston in 1977.

Table of Contents

Foreword by T.J. Anderson Preface by Leonard Brown

1.You Have To Be Invited - Leonard Brown
2. In His Own Words - Leonard Brown
3. John Coltrane and the Practice of Freedom - Herman Gray
4. John Coltrane As the Personification of Spirituality In Black Music - Anthony Brown
5. Freedom Is A Constant Struggle: Alice Coltrane and the Redefining of the Jazz Avante Garde - Tammy Kernodle
6. When Bar Walkers Preach: John Coltrane and The Crisis of the Black Intellectual - Tommy Lee Lott
7. "Don't Let the Devil (Make You) Lose Your Joy": A Look at Late Coltrane - Salim Washington
8. The Spiritual Ethos in Black Music and its Quintessential Exemplar, John Coltrane - Emmett G. Price III
9. Somebody Please Say, Amen! - Eric Jackson
10. Masters on A Master Introduction: Anthony Brown's and Leonard Brown's Interviews with Olly Wilson, Yusef Lateef and Billy Taylor
11. Conversation with Olly Wilson
12. Conversation with Yusef Lateef
13. Conversation with Billy Taylor
14. Coda: George Allen Russell on John Coltrane's Legacy

Editorial Reviews

"Coltrane's significance in the black community goes far beyond the notes he played. He stands for integrity, humility, spirituality, and more. For me, this book is a chance to read what my esteemed friends and colleagues have to say about this twentieth-century icon. For everyone, it's an opportunity to learn about Coltrane - the man and his music - from some new points of view." —Dr. Lewis Porter, Rutgers University-Newark

"If John Coltrane was 'invited' into the community of jazz musicians to be a custodian, innovator, and disseminator of Black American culture, Brown himself has invited a first-rate group of Black American contributors-scholars, musicians, media personalities, and educators-to provide an insightful and provocative view of the continuing relevance of Coltrane's music to the development of Black American spirituality, liberation, and non-Western ways of music-making." —Reebee Garofalo, University of Massachusetts, Boston

"The collection reads like a lively townhouse meeting in which the impassioned citizens of 'Tranes-ville' stake out their intellectual territories, each arguing for the importance of Coltrane's music and the deep sense of spirituality we sense in his singular brand of cultural nationalism. Come to the meeting and be inspired as well by this musician's exacting execution and uncompromising truth." —Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr., author of Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop

"John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom is a thorough investigation of John Coltrane's music via the artist, and the artist via his culture, not in an effort to solidify notions of black identity or enshrine a cultural legacy, but rather to show that the Black American experience itself is complex, improvised, defiant, and irreducible." —BlackGrooves.org

"An insightful collection." —wirenh.com

"A useful collection for those serious about the culture of jazz in general and Coltrane in particular. Recommended." —Choice

From the Publisher