A Sax Divine

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After a short stint in the navy, Coltrane became deeply involved with the postwar jazz scene, backing some of the era's top performers, including Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Hodges, and Miles Davis. But jazz wasn't the only thing consuming Trane. Like Charlie Parker, one of his idols, he got hooked on both heroin and alcohol. While opinions vary as to how severely Coltrane's addictions affected his music, he did get fired from several gigs, including his most prominent one, with trumpeter Davis.

In 1957 Coltrane overcame his addictions and, like many others who conquer their personal demons, found his way to a greater spiritual depth. 'I experienced, by the grace of God,' he later wrote, '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.' Coltrane produced an amazing amount of work in the 10 years he had left to live. By the time he died of liver cancer in 1967 at age 40, he had taken the saxophone, and jazz itself, to new places, raising the art of improvisation to a level that few if any have equaled.

Coltrane's hallowed status at St. John's is largely the work of the church's founder and bishop, Franzo Wayne King. King founded the church in 1971 as the One Mind Temple Evolutionary Transitional Body of Christ. In 1982 the church joined the African Orthodox Church, a small denomination started by African Americans who had been drawn to aspects of Greek, Russian, and Coptic Orthodox liturgy. Appointed the church's bishop, King dropped its old name and chose Coltrane as its patron saint. As a young man, King--not unlike Coltrane--had fled the religion of his Pentecostal parents for the jazz clubs. Seeing Coltrane play in 1965 was the 'sound baptism' that started King on a 'very serious and earnest journey to seek out God.' At St. John's, he hoped to lead others to the transformative spiritual experience he had encountered in Coltrane's music.

St. John's attracts a diverse group of seekers: disaffected Gen-Xers, affluent African American businesspeople, dreadlocked hippies, aging beats. Even those who are familiar with Coltrane's music may not be prepared for the positive vibrations of 'St. John, the sound Baptist,' as the church calls him. On the Sunday I attended, the tiny chapel was nearly full when the service began, but within minutes people started slipping out. The din of saxophones, drums, congas, bass, and percussion quickly overwhelmed the uninitiated. A trumpet inches from the back of my head screeched and honked the artist's avant-garde music throughout the service. But the worship style, flowing out of the Pentecostal and black church traditions, is as fervent and powerful as you'll find anywhere.

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