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Chart of John Coltrane
September 23, 1926, 5:00 p.m., Hamlet
NC
On December 9, 1964, jazz saxophonist John Coltrane and
the members of his quartet entered a recording studio in
Englewood Cliffs NJ at 8:00 p.m. for a four and a half hour
session. The music he taped that night - his classic, spiritually
inspired suite A Love Supreme - was conceived and performed
as a personal testimony to God.
A
Love Supreme session chart:
December 9, 1964, 8:00 p.m.,
Englewood Cliffs NJ
“All
Made From One”
As a composer and instrumentalist, Coltrane used music not
only to express himself emotionally, but also to communicate
spiritual and ideological concepts through non-verbal means.
A consummate innovator, he was always discovering new sources
of inspiration.
For A
Love Supreme, he adapted musical passages
from lyrical structures (1) – specifically, the suite’s title
itself as well as the text of a poem Coltrane included in
the album’s packaging. This approach to composition
enabled him to transcend music’s abstract quality and
speak directly to his listeners.
The suite’s first section, Acknowledgement, explores
a three-note, four-beat melody (based on the suite’s
title: a-love-su-preme) that, at the piece’s climax,
Coltrane randomly repeats in all twelve Western musical keys.
According to jazz scholar Lewis Porter, this was done to
convey a particular spiritual message: “he’s
telling us God is everywhere – in every register, in
every key.” (2)
Also, during Psalm, the suite’s final section, Coltrane’s
improvisation was based on the rhythmic pattern of the poem
included on the album jacket. Again, always purposeful, he
explained in the liner notes, “Words, sounds, speech,
men, memory, thoughts, fears and emotions – time all
related...all made from one.”(3)
Spiritual Awakening
In A Love Supreme’s liner notes, Coltrane refers back
to an epiphany he had seven years earlier as the suite’s
source of inspiration:
“During the year 1957, I experienced by the grace
of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer,
fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude,
I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make
others happy through music.” (4)
In early May 1957, Coltrane retreated for
a two-week stay at his mother’s house in Philadelphia, to tackle his
substance abuse problems - specifically alcohol and heroin
addiction. He had just been fired for a second time from
Miles Davis’ quintet, with whom he had been playing
for a year and a half, due to his habits having compromised
his playing ability.
Davis, himself a recovered heroin addict,
had been willing to overlook his musicians’ habits – to a degree.
But as he described Coltrane at the time he was fired, “Here
was Trane (Coltrane) up on the bandstand sometimes nodding
out...he’d be playing in clothes that looked like he
had slept in them for days, all wrinkled up and dirty...showing
up late, sometimes not at all.” (5)
Coltrane’s subsequent musical growth after emerging
clean and sober from his two-week spell in Philadelphia was
nothing short of miraculous. Over the next few months, he
played in composer Thelonious Monk’s band, and also
recorded his first classic solo album, Blue Train. By the
end of 1957, Miles Davis was so impressed with Coltrane’s
development, he invited him to re-join his group.
Coltrane remained in Davis’ band for another two years,
where they recorded some of the most memorable music in jazz
history. Once Coltrane went out on his solo career in 1960,
it wasn’t long before his own group eclipsed Davis’ as
one of the most popular and influential bands around.
A Love Supreme
On June 29, 1964, five months before recording
A Love Supreme, Coltrane was saddenned by news of the mysterious
accidental
death of his good friend, multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy.
Dolphy, who had been in Coltrane’s band during 1961
and had since played with him intermittently, though never
diagnosed with diabetes, died of insulin shock in a Berlin
hotel room.
Curiously, just two months after Dolphy’s death, on
August 26, 1964, Coltrane’s first son, John W. Coltrane,
was born. Immediately following the birth, in early September,
Coltrane disappeared into his workshop, emerging a few days
later with the completed score for A Love Supreme.
It is no simple coincidence that Coltrane’s
compositional tribute followed a personal experience with
the cycles of
both death and birth. A Love Supreme expressed his spiritual
gratitude not only for his musical gift, but for the second
chance he had been given to make something of his life.
From his awakening of May 1957 to his death ten years and
two months later, Coltrane was relentless in the pursuit
of his musical vision. His dedication to music was so intense
that, during nightclub engagements, he was known to continue
practicing in the bathroom between sets.
Having faced his mortality at the hands of
self-destruction, then through Dolphy’s tragic end, Coltrane had learned
to make the most of life’s brief and cherished opportunities.
In gratitude for his gift, he made A Love Supreme as “a
humble offering to Him.” (6)
Recurrence Transits
The story of Coltrane’s musical life
leading to the recording of A Love Supreme can be used
to demonstrate the
use of recurrence transits in astrology.
Most astrology books and articles that discuss
planetary transits to a natal chart usually refer to what
I call “zodiacal
contact”. If, for instance, someone has the planet
Jupiter at, say, the 13th degree of Leo in their natal chart,
and the planet Neptune comes around by transit and moves
to the same degree of the opposite sign (Aquarius), then
any astrologer will tell you that the person has just had
a Neptune to Jupiter opposition transit.
However, recurrence transits refer to times when specific
planetary combinations (aspects), such as Jupiter-Neptune
oppositions, are repeated in the sky on a given day or series
of days.
If
someone has a Jupiter-Neptune opposition in his or her
natal chart, and Jupiter and Neptune are
opposite at a given
time, then that person’s natal opposition gets “activated”.
That is, there is some form of event or set of circumstances
that somehow reflects whatever the Jupiter-Neptune opposition
means in that person’s life.
What is special about the recurrence transit
is the fact that this “activation” will occur even
if the transiting aspect doesn’t make any kind of contact
or aspect to a point in that person’s chart. Needless
to say, if someone has a recurrence transit of any kind that
does make “zodiacal contact” to a given point
in that person’s chart, then it is likely to coincide
with something really big in his/her life.
Jupiter-Neptune Opposition
John Coltrane has a Jupiter-Neptune opposition in his horoscope
(in Aquarius and Leo, respectively), in a grand cross configuration
(i.e. two oppositions square to each other) with another
planetary opposition: Mars in Taurus and Saturn in Scorpio.
Jupiter and Neptune were also in opposition
during the recording of A Love Supreme. As Jupiter’s
cycle lasts around twelve years, Jupiter-Neptune oppositions
occur every twelve
to thirteen years. Both Jupiter and Neptune are often associated
with spiritual qualities, though with important distinctions
between them:
Jupiter has more to do specifically with
one’s relationship
with the universe, a supreme consciousness and/or a deity/deities.
Jupiter’s character, by virtue of representing a sort
of “unbroken” or “eternal” principle,
is related to faith itself, in that it signifies anything
that an individual believes to be true – our “relationship” with
eternity.
In a personal horoscope, Jupiter represents
an individual’s
sense of favor or disfavor with these forces, hence it is
also associated with matters like luck and personal confidence.
Neptune, on the other hand, represents “universality”,
an awareness of all life as a connected whole. Neptunian
spirituality has more to do with the spirit that links human
consciousness: culturally, politically and spiritually. Neptune
blurs the lines of distinction between the individual and
the masses, and at a higher level, between humanity and the
universe.
The Jupiter-Neptune opposition in a given
horoscope represents a polarity between one’s personal faith and the zeitgeist
that appears to be governed by the greater human collective.
An individual with this configuration is driven to reconcile
one’s spiritual life with the force of the human collective.
Acknowledgement
The Jupiter-Neptune opposition, relative
to Coltrane’s
horoscope, has much to do with his spiritual concerns, which
were inextricably connected to his musical life.
He told interviewer Frank Kofsky in 1966, “...I think
that music, being an expression of the human heart, or of
the human being itself, does express just what is happening.
I feel it expresses the whole thing – the whole of
human experience at the time that it is being expressed.” (7)
Both of Coltrane’s grandfathers had been Methodist
ministers, and his upbringing included regular Sunday visits
to church. His maternal grandfather, Reverend William Wilson
Blair, was a community leader with a strong academic presence
and had a particular influence on Coltrane’s spiritual
sense, as well his intellectual curiosity.
As he told a Japanese interviewer in 1966, “I am (Christian)
by birth; my parents were and my early teachings were Christian.
But as I look upon the world, I feel all men know the truth.
If a man was a Christian, he could know the truth and he
could not. The truth itself does not have any name on it.
And each man has to find it for himself, I think.” (8)
As an adult Coltrane read all kinds of spiritual
texts, from the Bhagavad-Gita to the Torah – he was
even interested in astrology, as evidenced by such composition
titles as
Equinox and Fifth House, as well as a whole album, Interstellar
Space, with musical sections named after each of the planets.
Connected at Birth and Re-birth
Coltrane began playing the clarinet for his
school band in the fall of 1938. On December 11, 1938,
his grandfather,
Reverend Blair, died - followed in the next few months by
the death of Coltrane’s father, uncle and grandmother.
Thirteen year-old Coltrane’s profound sense of loss
drove him further into practicing his new instrument, setting
him firmly on the long path to musical mastery.
Interestingly, Coltrane’s long-time pianist, McCoy
Tyner – who played with Coltrane from 1960-1965 – was
actually born on December 11, 1938 – the exact day
Coltrane suffered from the first of three deaths in his family.
Tyner had actually first played live with Coltrane at a local
club in Philadelphia in May 1957, just as he had emerged
from his self-enforced addiction recovery.
McCoy
Tyner:
December 11, 1938, time unknown, Philadelphia PA
These coincidences that connect Tyner to
important times in Coltrane’s life reflect the tremendous musical bond
they shared. As the death of Coltrane’s grandfather
represented a sort of symbolic birth of his musical life
(though he had begun playing his instrument about three months
previously), Tyner represented a sort of “twin” to
that life.
Given Coltrane’s interests and beliefs, it is not
a stretch to suggest he may have viewed Tyner – a devout
orthodox Muslim – as an extension or possibly even
a new incarnation of his late, religious grandfather. Regardless,
Tyner ‘s musical value was clearly felt by Coltrane,
having been his first choice for a pianist (9) once he left
Davis’ band, and the first member of his eventual classic
quartet to join up.
Note that, like Coltrane, Tyner’s natal Jupiter is
in Aquarius. However, Tyner’s natal Jupiter is much
closer in opposition to Coltrane’s natal Neptune than
Coltrane’s own natal Jupiter, which is about seven
degrees apart from an exact opposition. Indeed, Tyner’s
added presence – the implied incarnation of Reverend
Blair - emphasized the music’s spiritual power.
Resolution
In expressing his sense of the distinct polarity
between Jupiter and Neptune during the opposition recurrence
transit,
Coltrane produced the sound of “a man facing God with
the gift of his music.” (10)
Sparked by the incidents of death and birth
in his life, he was compelled to communicate his vision
of spiritual life
through his music: the omnipresent power of a supreme consciousness,
the universe as a loving creator – what he called “a
love supreme”.
Sources and Notes
Data Sources
John
Coltrane’s birth data quoted from his birth certificate,
which is reprinted in Lewis Porter’s John Coltrane:
His Life & Music; also available from Astro DataBank,
rated AA. Data for the death of Coltrane’s grandfather,
Reverend William Blair, also quoted from Porter’s book
(p. 16).
Data
for the recording session of A Love Supreme quoted from
the schedule book of recording engineer
Rudy Van Gelder,
as reported in Ashley Kahn’s A Love Supreme/The
Creation of John Coltrane’s Classic Album.
McCoy
Tyner’s birth data (no time given) quoted from
website bio provided by booking agents: http://www.internationaljazzproductions.com/mtyner.html,
as well as in Len Lyons’ The Great Jazz Pianists (Da
Capo, 1983).
Biographical Sources
A
Love Supreme/The Creation of John Coltrane’s
Classic Album by Ashley Kahn (Granta, 2002)
John Coltrane: His Life & Music by Lewis Porter (University
of Michigan, 1998)
Ascension/John Coltrane & His Quest by Eric Nisenson
(Da Capo, 1995)
Miles/ The Autobiography by Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe
(Touchstone, 1989)
John Coltrane & The Jazz Revolution of the 1960s by Frank
Kofsky (Pathfinder, 1998; see also http://www.room34.com/kofsky/jcint.html)
The Great Jazz Pianists by Len Lyons (Da Capo, 1983)
Notes
(1)
This wasn’t the first time he had employed this
technique: the previous year, his composition Alabama - inspired
by the tragic church bombing in Birmingham that killed four
small girls – was constructed from the rhythmic pattern
of a speech given by Martin Luther King Jr. about the incident.
(Kahn, p.79)
(2) Porter (p. 242)
(3) A
Love Supreme, liner notes by Coltrane
(4) A
Love Supreme, liner notes by Coltrane
(5)
Davis & Troupe (p. 212)
(6) A
Love Supreme, liner notes by Coltrane
(7) Coltrane interview with Kosky (http://www.room34.com/kofsky/jcint2.html)
(8) Nisenson (p. 212)
(9)
Tyner wasn’t immediately available, so Coltrane
played with Steve Kuhn for a couple of months; however, Tyner
states that he and Coltrane had a longtime understanding
that he would be Coltrane’s pianist once Coltrane left
Davis’ band for good. (Lyons, p. 238)
(10) Bono from U2, quoted in Kahn (preface, p. xxii)
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