John Coltrane John Coltrane the finale

This is the end, my friend. Even if my fingertips cover the keyboard with blood, I will hunt and peck my way to the finish. I left you listening to Charles Lloyd's Forest Flower. I realize that I didn't tell you about a short mood-setting event just prior. After we listened to some West Coast folk/country rock(now termed alt.country), Jeff suggested that we go swimming.  I figured that we'd head to the manor(this being a gentleman farmer's digs) to swim in the pool. Instead we went through the French doors (which reminds me - in the last entry I mentioned my geographical weakness. After, I realized it wasn't a lack of cosmopolitan cool that lured me into thinking Monterey was in France. I had confused it with Montreaux since they both had jazz festivals. Besides, New York City natives are so provincial that they really don't care where any other place is. After all, they are from THE CITY) down a dirt path through another grove(of trees) to a slow rolling river.  "Jump in" "I don't have a bathing suit" He peels off his clothes and dives in. So this was what they meant when they said drugs could make you do strange things(none of the escapades I had participated in THE CITY under the influence like hauling 30 concrete blocks one by one from a nearby construction site at three in the morning with my roommate , both of us wearing our philosophy robes(see earlier entry), to build a room divider in our apartment or watching television test patterns for hours on end while discussing their existential nuances had been strange). I decided to take full advantage of the opportunity. I won't digress into my immediate entry into the world of Buddhist nothingness. Let it suffice to say, "It was cool, man." When we got back, it was Charles Lloyd time. I got caught up right away, transported to France, in touch with my Sartrian soul, and listening to a sax played like I had never heard.  As I listen to it now as I write this, the listening carries a lot of that moment. As we drove back to the city(note lower case), I asked Jeff if he could recommend any other albums. "John Coltrane  A Love Supreme." Ah, I figured, something from the summer of love - laid back and groovin. Just before going home for Christmas, I went to the Harvard Coop(looking back I wonder if I was the only one who pronounced it as coop as in chickens instead of co op as in an attempt at pseudo socialism but fuck it I was from THE CITY). I didn't bother to take it home since my playing anything on the home stereo would only result in sarcastic comments which would then devolve into arguments about the merits of "the true faith." New Year's Eve 1967, I put the needle down, click, the whooshing crackle of a few empty grooves, a chord from space from a place I'd never been accompanied by a pool of cymbals then a voice no a horn calling me to listen to come in to the sound the prayer then a four note thrum on the bass a cell of four sounds which the sax played updowninsideoutoutsideoutin till it melted into God chanting "A Love Supreme  A Love Supreme A Love Supreme....." To try for further description is futile, one of the great pieces of music! For me, the greatest! I found an old notebook and started writing and haven't stopped since. That music opened the world to me. It led me to ideas, books, music, people, emotions, relationships, experiences, art, nature, death, sex, love, sound, touch, smell, taste, sight,spirit. In San Francisco, there is a Church of St. John Coltrane where every Sunday the congregation gathers to listen to A Love Supreme played live. That is the service. If I believed in institutional religion, that would be the one. About two years later I wrote a poem(this poem writing quest began that night and continues forty-one years later). When I read it now, it seems a little over the top and definitely a bit of a shameless attempt to to copy the work of the great poet Amiri Baraka. But it was the first time I felt I was able to come close to communicating in words,  no, in sounds the experience of that night. For your listening pleasure.....(.as is my habit I'll probably revise as I go, which fits the spirit of improvisation)

                                                   because of john coltrane

his fingers roam the beards

of three fine figured saviours

a warning that man

may inherit the task of

living out lives on a round planet

alone    listen

salvation rings

incessantly in a few asylums

howling between Black hands clapped

on gold saxophone back

on his heels        shaking

sounds around

the heads of priests  junk dealers  christ

passes in a yellow cab won't

stop for us uptown

the drummer plays us home

on our own feet

until you've played religion

stays with you    like all

things after again you're

on your own

between spots unable

to go in & listen to what

once

had to be true

breath breathe

listen        it's painting half

feelings  the

unfinished business of your

heart breaking in 

between notes

Coltrane knew about religion knew

its sound

there among the reeds are prophets talking

salvation or

doom            there

among the reeds are players 

of star music showing a way

that will take

you deeper into Earth farther

into heaven there

among the reeds is a "sky trane"

through the void

shango in the galaxy

three kings star

stuck in the universe

look when they should hear

eyes no good when no

sight to see

saw the star missed the sound

before  saw the flame-bush missed the sound

later  saw the man missed the sound

now downtown streets blow 

mother music

                                                                                      free

blue tunes leap                                                             

into life

into no

end 

streaming

from a scarred throat