Whilst engaging in a spot of FB banter/lurking, this topic somehow hove into view, along with a parallel thread in which ‘Trane was compared with that other modern deity, Elvis (Baz Luhrmann has a biopic on the latter coming out soon, God help us!)
I wondered, did the Oops, er… oops? I mean the Pope (I love that predictive rendered Pope as Oops!), know of this beatification?
A bit of Googling revealed that John’s elevation to sainthood was actually a demotion from godhead! And not via the ‘purple inflatability’ of the Oops. Oh no! It was the AOC, or African Orthodox Church (of America) that sanctioned this sanctifying:
‘In September 1982, Coltrane was officially canonized as a saint by the AOC.’
[Source, NPR. Read more here.]
I love a great deal of John Coltrane’s music. And I also dig a great deal of Alice Coltrane as well. She was a super-spiritual sort as well. It’s kind of cool, as well as downright weird, that ‘A Love Supreme’ has become a kind of hymn and regular service at the church that bears his name.
I find it all totally understandable. John and Alice have made music with tremendous emotional and psychic or spiritual power. But these are vexed terms and ideas, for me.
Not going to say much about it all here and now. Just observe that these things are whatever they may be. They exist!
