John Coltrane, born September 26, 1926, would have turned 100 this year. Ahead of the centennial, four facts trace how his spirituality shaped his music, inspired a San Francisco church devoted to him, fed into The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High,” and transformed “M
On September 26, 1926, John Coltrane was born in North Carolina. This year marks the Coltrane centennial—and it lands with a particular weight because his life was tragically short. Coltrane died in 1967, aged 40, but in that time he changed the face of jazz through his saxophone playing and compositions. The influence didn’t stay in one lane; it spread into other forms of music, too.
Long after the last note of his recordings. his work still carries one unmistakable thread: a sense that the music was more than sound. A strong sense of the divine infused much of John Coltrane’s output. Coltrane struggled with drug addiction. and after his recovery in 1957. he began to see his music as an integral part of his spiritual pathway.
That devotion is written directly into his art. A Love Supreme. his 1965 classic album. is framed by a poem of the same title. where he writes that the album is “a humble offering to Him.” The record is not just one of the most important albums in jazz history; it’s also an act of devotion. In albums like Om and songs like the haunting “Dear Lord. ” his spirituality appears as fluid and all-encompassing rather than pinned to one moment.
For some people, that wasn’t abstract. Coltrane’s spiritual impact was such that there was an actual church devoted to him. The Saint John Coltrane Church was established in San Francisco in the 1960s. and it still exists. although the locale has changed numerous times over the decades. The church venerates Coltrane and uses A Love Supreme as its liturgy. It also has commitments beyond the music, including social justice, community, and the arts.
His reach didn’t stop at the boundaries of jazz or even at religious life. Coltrane’s innovations also made their way into rock. where the spirit of his improvisational freedom was repackaged for a different audience. “Eight Miles High” was released by the Byrds in 1966. The word “high” became a flashpoint in the wider culture and “ultimately killed any chance for a breakout hit.”.
Even so, the song became known for doing something bigger than chasing radio approval. “Eight Miles High” is described as a groundbreaking, expansive song that helped usher in psychedelic rock. It was an intentional homage to Coltrane’s music. and it was meant to fuse jazz sensibilities into the rock format. It’s debatable whether Coltrane’s later music can be construed as true psychedelia. but the facts point to why the connection felt natural: his musical expansiveness. his spiritual journey. and influences heavily shaped by India all had an appeal that fit the musical zeitgeist beginning to bubble by the mid-sixties.
Coltrane also proved he could take something familiar and make it unrecognizably his. His recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things”—recorded over sixty years ago—still looms large in jazz history. Coltrane took the chipper, perfectly acceptable song from The Sound of the Music and made it something entirely, dramatically different.
His version lasted almost fourteen minutes. He used the neglected soprano saxophone, adding an entirely different dimension to a once-Broadway hit. It also helped bring the soprano sax back into music-making. In that trance-like version, there are prominent Middle Eastern motifs. Alexander Westerman wrote that Coltrane proved “disparate worlds could coexist in one song.” And beyond the craft. the record’s impact is still described simply as beauty—“My Favorite Things” remains beautiful.
What ties these stories together is the same leap from devotion to influence: spirituality in his playing. a church built around his work. a rock homage that couldn’t be fully controlled by culture-war vocabulary. and a pop standard stretched into a long-form statement that kept its emotional center. Coltrane’s centennial doesn’t just mark a birthday; it redraws the distance between jazz and everything that jazz touched.
John Coltrane Coltrane centennial A Love Supreme Saint John Coltrane Church Eight Miles High Byrds My Favorite Things saxophone jazz history
Coltrane was like jazz but also spiritual or whatever.
A church devoted to him?? That’s actually wild. I didn’t know the Byrds thing either, like “Eight Miles High” was somehow connected?? Music history is so messy.
So he had drug addiction then got clean in 1957 and turned into a pastor basically? I mean I get the spirituality angle, but a “humble offering to Him” makes it sound like he was religious religious. Also the article says the church still exists but the location changed a bunch… so which church is it now lol.
I feel like this centennial stuff always makes it sound so deep, like he was trying to prove something. But didn’t he die pretty young because of the addiction? (I’m assuming, sorry.) And the Byrds connection… I always thought “Eight Miles High” was just about drugs or flying or whatever, so now I’m confused. Anyway, “A Love Supreme” hits even if I don’t fully understand the poem part.