On the centennial of father’s birth, Ravi Coltrane talks about turning the home where the jazz legend spent a crucial period in the 1950s into a cultural heritage and community space.
Transcript
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE’S “ACKNOWLEDGEMENT”)
JOEL ROSE, HOST:
John Coltrane is one of the biggest names in the history of jazz.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE’S “ACKNOWLEDGEMENT”)
ROSE: Nearly 100 years after his birth, Coltrane is regarded as one of the greatest saxophonist and composers this country ever produced. The home in Philadelphia where Coltrane spent a crucial period in the 1950s is a national historic landmark. But in the decades since Coltrane’s death, that house has fallen into disrepair. Now the Coltrane family is working to save it.
RAVI COLTRANE: When you’re a kid, you know, everything seems so huge. Now it all seems so tiny to me (laughter). I’m afraid to bump my head up here.
ROSE: We got a tour of the unassuming rowhouse in North Philadelphia from John Coltrane’s son, Ravi, who remembers coming here as a young child to visit his grandmother.
COLTRANE: I spent a lot of time running up and down these stairs, chasing each other (inaudible). I had a younger brother and an older brother. I’m sure one of us knocked down one of these posts here (laughter). You know, when you come rolling down, you go crashing into the banister.
ROSE: This is where John Coltrane was living at a pivotal moment in his career in 1957. He was addicted to heroin. He had just been fired by trumpeter Miles Davis. Ravi Coltrane says his father secluded himself in the bedroom at the back of the second floor.
COLTRANE: This is the room where he went cold turkey. He quit heroin and had a spiritual awakening. It was in 1957. For the rest of his career, he basically spoke about that moment, you know, where he basically asked God to free him from these addictions and to grant him the ability to please others, make others happy with his music.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE’S “GIANT STEPS”)
ROSE: Coltrane reinvented his music, playing cascading sheets of notes in rapid succession, and launching ahead with a new harmonic language that would change jazz forever.
COLTRANE: To create something more universal, taking in all of the music that inspired him and all the music that came before him and finding a new language, a universal language. And I think that’s what he was in search of from 1957 on to ’67 when he passed away.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE’S “GIANT STEPS”)
ROSE: John Coltrane bought this house in 1952 with help from the G.I. Bill after he served in the Navy. He would often drive back and forth to New York for gigs. And Ravi Coltrane, who is also a saxophonist, says his father was always practicing his craft.
COLTRANE: He would play a set for 45 minutes where the music is going through the roof. He’d come off the stage and really wouldn’t take the horn out of his mouth. He would just go to the back in the dressing room and continue playing until it was time to get back on the stage and play for the audience.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE’S “GIANT STEPS”)
COLTRANE: My mother would tell me he would come home after gigs and continue to play. He was working out ideas and embracing the sound of his horn, kind of uniting with that sound.
ROSE: I love the idea that the audience was – I don’t want to say irrelevant, but…
COLTRANE: (Laughter).
ROSE: …Secondary, right?
(LAUGHTER)
COLTRANE: Well, I – no, I think that for musicians, we do have a role, a primary role, to get the music out there. You know, whatever’s in there and here, the head or the heart, we’re trying to get that out. It’s supposed to be received by an ear. You know, it’s like a tree falling in the woods. Does it make a sound if there’s no one there to hear it?
ROSE: Right, it’s communication and…
COLTRANE: Absolutely. Of course, John recognized that. You know, that was one of the things that he asked for. He wanted the ability to make others happy and uplift them with music. That is a virtue. It’s a gift. And he was endowed, blessed with that gift. We wouldn’t be sitting here if that weren’t the case. It’s clearly something he recognized.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE’S “MY FAVORITE THINGS”)
COLTRANE: He was able to uplift all of us, generation after generation. It’s been 60-some years now since he – since he’s passed. But everything he put into his work and his music, that was for us, and it’s still affecting people to this day. It’s amazing.
ROSE: If you want to see John Coltrane’s house in Philadelphia for yourself, well, you can’t yet. At the moment, it is closed to the public. The Coltrane family reacquired the house in 2024.
COLTRANE: John Coltrane lived here in this home here in Philadelphia at a very, very significant point in his life, his career. And these are symbols. They’re not just brick and mortar. You know, they represent something much higher. This message of unity and universal supreme love that motivated my father, also motivated my mother. You know, when people see these homes, they get a sense of that. They feel that. When they enter the homes, they really feel it. And I think that’s just – it’s something that we have to provide. I think John Coltrane’s impact is that powerful.
ROSE: Ravi Coltrane and his wife, Kathleen Hennessy, are now trying to restore the house with help from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. They have started by restoring the facade, but the rest still needs a lot of work. Hennessy told me it is slow-going, but it’s important.
KATHLEEN HENNESSY: We’re trying to tell a riveting American story. I think the mission is to help people understand the music community in Philadelphia. And the city helped raise John Coltrane in some ways, and he helped raise the music scene here in Philadelphia. And they’re intrinsic. Like, they’re just connected in a very beautiful way.
People should be able to come to places where great art was made. It’s so moving to anybody. You don’t have to be a fan of music. People will be able to walk in here. History is for everybody, and this is a super important American story. Everybody deserves access to it, and these projects are a great vehicle for that.
COLTRANE: The train’s coming.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN WHISTLE)
ROSE: And then Ravi Coltrane interrupted to point out the whistle of a freight train drifting up from the railroad tracks that run behind the house.
COLTRANE: (Whistling). It’s a diminished, half-diminished chord.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN WHISTLE)
COLTRANE: (Whistling).
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN WHISTLE)
ROSE: We all stopped to listen as he walked over to the piano to figure out the musical notes in that train whistle.
COLTRANE: (Playing piano). Minor sixth.
(Playing piano). Minor flat five.
(Playing piano).
ROSE: For a second, it was easy to imagine the harmonic possibilities in a house where the course of jazz changed forever.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE’S “MR. P.C.”)
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