Jim Carroll's Blog · https://www.jimcarrollsblog.com/blog/2020/12/16/a-love-supreme-the-spiritual-journey-of-john-coltrane
In 1957 he shut a bedroom door, quit heroin cold, and promised God music that would make people happy. His sons are unlocking that room for a whole neighborhood.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly… teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.
Colossians 3:16
On September 5, NPR's All Things Considered went inside a rowhouse at 1511 N. 33rd Street in Strawberry Mansion, North Philadelphia. John Coltrane bought it in 1952 on the G.I. Bill and lived here with his mother and his cousin Mary, the actual Cousin Mary of Giant Steps. His centennial arrives September 23. His sons Ravi and Oran recovered the deed in 2024, and a $200,000 National Trust grant is helping them turn the house into a place the neighborhood can walk into, opening in 2027.
The room that matters is small, upstairs, at the back. In 1957, addicted to heroin and just fired by Miles Davis, Coltrane shut himself in and quit cold turkey. He asked God to free him and promised to make others happy with his music. Seven years later, at his home on Long Island, he wrote A Love Supreme, jazz's most famous prayer of thanksgiving. Its liner notes tell this bedroom's story, and the record ends in capital letters: ALL PRAISE BE TO GOD TO WHOM ALL PRAISE IS DUE.
Psalm 40:2-32He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand.3He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in Yahweh.
That is the bedroom, sung three thousand years in advance.
Paul's letter about a word dwelling in people assumes the word will come back out as music, and the music will do the teaching. It did here. Giant Steps, written during his years in this house, is still the exam every young saxophonist sweats through.
The sons want the teaching to keep moving. Kathleen Hennessy, Ravi's wife, says people should be able to come to the places where great art was made. Her short version: "History is for everybody." During NPR's visit a freight train rolled past, and Ravi, at the piano, named the chords in its whistle. Half diminished. Minor sixth. Minor flat five. Come 2027, anyone will be able to climb the stairs to the room where his father asked.