Old School Friday

I can see now how these Old School Friday posts are going to progress - each week's selection makes me think of the next week's, and just as Don Cherry suggested Pharoah Sanders and Pharoah Sanders suggested Alice Coltrane,  Alice Coltrane almost demands that I post John Coltrane.

Of course, Coltrane is such a pivotal, essential figure in jazz music that it would have been hard to keep this series going for long without posting something by him.  I've actually been striving to put off a Coltrane post for as long as I could just to give some other voices a chance before turning to the master (note to self: rename the Old School Friday series to Dreaming of the Masters after the Art Ensemble of Chicago song). But as I said before, after posting something by Alice Coltrane, it's almost impossible not to post something by John.

The question is where to start.  What one song should I select to properly capture the creativity of arguably the greatest musician in the 20th Century?  Actually, in all likelihood, I'll probably be posting Coltrane for a few weeks because just one is hardly enough, but still, where to start?

Coltrane's music has long been important to me - the very first paper I wrote in college for my Freshman Composition course, in response to the instruction, "Write about anything you care deeply about" was a short piece on the music of John Coltrane.  His tenor provided much of the soundtrack of my life since around 1974, but I would be dishonest with myself if I didn't choose Wise One to begin, as it's the song that has seared itself most deeply into my subconscious.

The reason for my selection is so personal and so intimate and so sensual that I can't even tell you about it - not out of modesty or some sense of propriety, but because I don't have the necessary skill with words to properly paint the picture.  I'll say this much - in 1979, when Mary Ellen put this record on the turntable the morning after what was probably the sexiest, most romantic, most enchanting evening of my young life, I knew as we continued our long and meaningful conversation and the intro to Wise One came over the speakers that I had found the right one and that I was in love.