Good morning,
After my parents left town after a few weeks’ long visit around Thanksgiving, I started listening to 90.9 FM WDCB a lot. 90.9 FM is a public jazz radio station that broadcasts from the College of DuPage. They borrowed one of our cars while here, and every time I got into the Honda after my dad had been driving, WDCB was on the dial. Growing up my dad listened to jazz in the car and around the house. Though at the time I preferred alternative rock and Top 40, I’m grateful for the exposure because I’ve grown to love listening to jazz.
Still, with the curated/opt-in nature of Spotify, podcasts, audiobooks, and even Sirius, I’ve been finding myself going to jazz less and less (less and less music, in general). But having 90.9 show up in the car reminded me how much: a) I love listening to the radio and b) relief I feel from not having to pick the perfect thing to play.
Most mornings before I start writing or journaling or reading in the kitchen, I’ll click Spotify and listen to Víkingur Ólafsson or Michiru Aoyama. Lately though, I’ve been streaming WDCB’s app and enjoy the deejays’ varied choices and the exposure to new music (swing on Saturday mornings, Warren Wolf’s Christmas album, Eddie Harris Quartet’s Freedom Jazz Dance, a Michael Franks deep cut).
This morning, while easing into the day and streaming 90.9, I heard an interview about a new solo exhibition by Norman Teague being shown at the Elmhurst Art Museum. Titled A Love Supreme (an homage to John Coltrane’s landmark 1965 album), the show is:
“A solo exhibition inspired by legendary jazz musician John Coltrane [and] will have an adjoining installation in Mies van der Rohe’s McCormick House by Chicago-based BIPOC designers. Teague uses Coltrane’s album as a personal, cultural, and spiritual touchstone to consider design influences from his life-long home in Chicago, exploring how the power of bold improvisational jazz and unapologetic Black aesthetics have expanded the minds and inspired creative communities of color.
‘I believe there is a quest for craft from the imaginations of Black America that needs to be heard, seen, and felt as safe, desired, and beautiful. And it can only come from us. This turning point of awareness in American history will only get greater as time goes on—and design history will follow,’ says Teague.”
Years ago in my old apartment on Cornelia, I kept hundreds of records neatly aligned in an IKEA shelving unit that my friend Tom mounted horizontally above the mantle in the living room. Two large Klipsch speakers flanked the impressive display of LPs that my carpenter friend was able to safely make happen. Each morning while getting ready for work, I put on a record and enjoyed the analog sounds filling my neat one-bedroom apartment. Heavy in the rotation and the time was Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk, a self-titled record by the mysterious indie jam band GOAT, an array of Cass McCombs LPs, Good Kid M.A.A.D. City, and eventually mostly Coltrane’s spellbinding 4-song tour de force, A Love Supreme. The record sleeve, which belonged to my dad and was ostensibly an old copy, eventually lived next to the turntable instead of inside the hulking brown IKEA shelf.
After listening to the album dozens of times on repeat over the course of a few weeks, I pulled out the liner notes to learn more about the record. In addition to the album credits and track listing, I was surprised to find a poem by Coltrane. Rife with spiritual and religious themes, the eponymous poem reads:
A Love Supreme
I will do all I can to be worthy of Thee, O Lord. It all has to do with it. Thank You God.
Peace. There is none other. God is. It is so beautiful. Thank You God.
God is all. Help us to resolve our fears and weaknesses. In you all things are possible. Thank you God.
We know. God made us so. Keep your eye on God. God is. He always was. He always will be.
No matter what... it is God. He is gracious and merciful. It is most important that I know Thee.
Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thoughts, fears and emotions--time--all related...all made from one... all made in one.
Blessed be his name.Thought waves--heat waves--all vibrations--all paths lead to God. Thank you God.
His way... it is so lovely... it is gracious. It is merciful--Thank you God. One thought can produce millions of vibrations and they all go back to God... everything does.
Thank you God. Have no fear... believe... Thank you God. The universe has many wonders. God is all.
His way... it is so wonderful. Thoughts--deeds--vibrations, all go back to God and He cleanses all.
He is gracious and merciful... Thank you God. Glory to God... God is so alive. God is. God loves.
May I be acceptable in Thy sight.
We are all one in His grace. The fact that we do exist is acknowledgement of Thee, O Lord. Thank you God.
God will wash away all our tears...He always has...He always will.
Seek him everyday. In all ways seek God everyday. Let us sing all songs to God. To whom all praise is due... praise God.
No road is an easy one, but they all go back to God.
With all we share God. It is all with God. It is all with Thee.
Obey the Lord. Blessed is He. We are all from one thing... the will of God...Thank you God.
--I have seen ungodly--none can be greater--none can compare Thank you God.
He will remake... He always has and He always will. It's true--blessed be His name--Thank you God.
God breathes through us so completely...so gently we hardly feel it... yet, it is our everything.
Thank you God.
ELATION--ELEGANCE--EXALTATION--All from God.
Thank you God. Amen.
Coltrane’s bandmates (Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner and Jimmy Garrison) were unaware that Coltrane was “playing” a poem with horn; they thought he was improvising. When I read Coltrane’s writing while listening to the track, titled “A Love Supreme, Pt. IV - Psalm,” I could hear the words in his horn’s enunciation. According to San Francisco Jazz, “For Coltrane, reciting the poem vocally, or through his horn, is ultimately one and the same.” (This video shows the poem accompanied with the song.)
This seminal work came out 59 years ago this month and to me sounds timeless, fresh, explosive, gentle, and all-encompassing. And it is powerful enough to serve as a springboard for other artists to create whole bodies of work around.
There’s an accompanying exhibit to Teague’s that involves Mies van der Rohe’s McCormick House. This part of the show “seeks to provide a new narrative about the bold, bright, and vast number of designers who are the future of American design. For the McCormick House installation, curators Norman Teague and Rose Camara ask, ‘What is your Coltrane story? Who awakened you personally and artistically?’
I like these questions, apropos of Coltrane or otherwise: Who’s awakened you personally? Artistically? And if you’re not a Coltrane fan, who or what is your “Coltrane?” Your transcendent, paradigm-shifting inspiration?
Until next time,
Matt
P.S. Thank you to those who respond to my weekly letters. If you’d like to turn your personal message to me into a public comment here, I would be very grateful!
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