Archbishop Franzo King, who plays several instruments masterfully, lays down the beat as the saxophonist plays, at his St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church. Photo: Evelyn Nieves, Washington Post

By music, as you may have guessed, I'm not talking about bubble-gum pop or rap. I'm talking about a music form that has been called classical - at least by Black listeners - for generations. I speak of jazz.

I speak specifically of the music of the late saxophonist John Coltrane (1928-1987), an adherent of the form that came to be called avant-garde (French for advance guard) or free form jazz. In the ‘50s, he was a star player in the Miles Davis quintet.
Later, he would lead several groups and, when not zonked out high on heroin, would play such music as would move millions, even now, decades after his death.

In San Francisco, a church stands today which has named the musician a Saint of the African Orthodox rite. This is the same church that was the religious branch of the Marcus Garvey Black nationalist movement of the early 20th century.

At the St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church, Archbishop Franzo Wayne King presides, and his appreciation of Coltrane's music may be shown as often by his preaching as by his playing of the saxophone in tribute to the Saint. In a recent interview, Archbishop King explained that he heard Coltrane live in 1966 at a local club called the Jazz Workshop, where he and his girlfriend - soon to be wife, Marina - got front row seats. What they heard that evening almost literally blew him away.

King would later explain the experience as his "sound baptism."*
So taken was he by the power and beauty of Coltrane's music that he first organized a small congregation called the Yardbird Temple, named after the nickname of another famous sax player, Charlie Parker. In this initial gathering, Coltrane was worshipped as a god, and Parker was seen as a John the Baptist-type figure. Years later, when King joined the African Orthodox Church, Coltrane was "demoted" to saint.

Today, people come from all around the world to visit the San Francisco church.
The influence of Coltrane also had far less spectacular but still meaningful impact on the lives of people during the ‘60s. As Black revolutionary and later scholar, Muhammad Ahmad - who worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and other such movements - would later write in his political autobiography, "We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations, 1960-1975," music opened his mind to political ideas and possibilities:

"First was going to see Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln present their ‘Freedom Now Suite' at the national convention of the NAACP, which was held in Philadelphia that year. I had been raised on jazz and had done my homework with Eddie Collier while listening to John Coltrane's ‘Giant Steps.' I had gone to the Newport Jazz Festival and was an avid fan of both Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley.

"But this was the first time I had heard ‘message music' so direct for my generation. The ‘Freedom Now Suite' immediately raised my political and cultural consciousness. It wouldn't be until a year later that I would listen to John Coltrane's ‘My Favorite Things' and become a ‘Tranite' until ‘Trane' passed on in 1967" (page xxvi).
As Ahmad explained, music was a powerful social force that opened new ways of looking at and thinking about and living in the world. Music is more, much more than a commodity.

Free jazz of that period represented, quite simply, freedom, in breaking away from the restraints of the past. This power of music must be recaptured, to become a resource for a people who are still not free.

*Source: Samuel C. Freedman, "Sunday Afternoon Faith, Inspired by Saturday Nights," New York Times, 12/1/07, p. 85: Muhammad Ahmad, aka Max Stanford Jr., "We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations, 1960-1975," Chicago, Ill.: Charles Kerr, Publisher, 2007

© Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia's latest book, "We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party," winner of the 2005 People's Choice Award, available from South End Press, www.southendpress.org or (800) 533-8478. Keep updated by reading Action Alerts at www.mumia.org and www.moveorg.net. To download Mp3s of Mumia's commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org or www.fsrn.org. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia's commentaries to inspire progressive movement and help call attention to his case. Send our brotha some love and light at: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg PA 15370.

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