How I Discovered Coltrane

Routines are important. Before the responsibilities of having a family took over, here was one of mine: each weekend, I’d jump in my car and hit two or three record stores, usually starting with Wuxtry in Decatur, then heading to Decatur CD and then Criminal and Wax ’n’ Facts in Little 5s. One sunny Sunday afternoon, the important find happened before I ever got to the store.

Jumped in the car, the radio was already tuned to a college radio station. The DJ had just hit play on…something. There was audience applause and then the thumping of an upright bass. Just the bass. Plucked and bowed. As the solo crested the ten minute mark, I was fascinated: What IS this?

And then the band rolled in with this incredible melody. It was intoxicating and mysterious. I drove up Old Covington Highway, but I was in a completely different place, transfixed by this music. As I got closer to Decatur, the music grew in intensity, going from a somber and smoky jazz tune to this roiling improvisation. I pulled into the Wuxtry lot and it showed no signs of relenting. So I waited.

I sat in my car for another half hour as this towering noise rattled my speakers, getting only a brief reprieve from a piano solo.

The song lasted almost an hour before coming to a crashing end. The DJ finally came back and simply said “John Coltrane. Crescent. Totally uncompromising.” I bolted into the store.

This was the first time I had ever knowingly heard Coltrane. Those 54 minutes and 33 seconds made me an immediate fan. That kind of sustained intensity isn’t for everyone. For where I was in my life at the time, it was perfect.

I’d dropped out of college after an academically disastrous pair of semesters. Living at home, I found a job in a chemical plant, mixing and bottling industrial cleaning fluids. It was a good job, and also one that kept me isolated from other people most of the day. You don’t tend to interact with customers when you’re handling that much bleach and alcohol. All of my high school friends were off at college and so, alone all week, and with nothing to do on weekends, I started blowing through all the money I was supposed to be saving up from this job — money that could have been going toward an apartment, going toward getting back into school. Instead my energy and my cash were spent on record shopping. Honestly, I was a little bit of a mess.

So hearing music that was chaotic and unbound by tempo and opinion fit right into where I was. It was like someone reached in and took the noise in my head and crafted it into art.

When I ran into Wuxtry that day, still floating on that music, I didn’t actually find what I was looking for. That performance of “Crescent,” I’d come to find out, was part of a four CD set called “John Coltrane Live in Japan.” What I did find that day was Coltrane’s album “Crescent,” featuring the original studio recording of that song. Here, it’s much more restrained, but no less beautiful. This record is generally overshadowed by the one that followed it: “A Love Supreme.” “Crescent” is still my favorite though, thanks to that one Sunday drive.

Putting the original “Crescent” next to its extended live performance is a nice reminder that we’re allowed to return to what we’ve done in the past, re-think it, and try it again. And we can only hope, like Coltrane…or like myself when I finally returned to school the following winter, that when we do, we can get a lot more out of it.