Coltrane at 100: Symposium

On the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane's birth year, The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music's global jazz studies program will celebrate this giant of the saxophone, this jazz innovator and spiritual/artistic icon of the Black Arts Movement, this patron saint of avant garde. This symposium will honor Coltrane in words. The keynote address will be delivered by  Archbishop Franzo King, co-founder of the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church. The keynote address in addition to remarks by the archbishop will feature music from members of the church.

Symposium Schedule

Opening remarks

Salim Washington

Panel 1 (2:10 pm)

Moderator Steve Loza

Andy Beta, “Infinity as Autobiography”: Alice Coltrane’s Reimagining of John Coltrane’s Late Recordings”

Beta examines the critical reception of Alice Coltrane’s Infinity recording, and the ways in which the recording reflected upon her development as an artist.

Nadia Milad Issa, “Saint Coltrane, the Dance Eulogy, and the Spirit Veil, ‘A Love Supreme’ as Ancestral Mediation”.

This paper positions Coltrane’s canonization b the St. John Coltrane church not as an isolated action of Bay Area devotion but as a template for choreographic and religious practice alike: testimony converted into ritual, grief converted into repeated form.

Martin Hundley, “Alice Coltrane, Sound of Free Universe: Performance Practice, Technology, and Feminist Epistemology”

This paper explores the ways in which Alice Coltrane’s musical sound and instrumental performance practice expresses the complexity of her identity, world view, spirituality, and travels, both geographically and temporally. Hundley employs and ethnographic and musicological approach to Coltrane’s recording Translinear Light.

Special Guest Speaker (3:40 pm)

Panel 2 (3:50 p.m.)

Moderator Regina Carter-Garnett

Scott B. Spencer, “Meme and Variations: How Video Mashups of John Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps’ Became a Thing”

The intent of this study is to explore John Coltrane’s online legacy, use it to expand our field’s toolset to better deal with digital texts, and to tease out their various cultural contexts.

Aaron J. Johnson, “Africa/Brass and the Communal Experience of Engaging the Music of John Coltrane”

With the vision of Reggie Workman and Charles Tolliver Africa/Brass has afforded the uncommon opportunity for musicians to communally share the experience of performing Coltrane’s music and invoking his spirit.

John-Carlos Perea, “Versions as Relations: Naima, John Coltrane, and Jim Pepper”

This paper considers the original 1959 recording of “Naima” and the subsequent versioning of it by Jim Pepper as a sonification through which to amplify Pepper’s relationship to Coltrane via Pepper’s experiences through Southern Plains Intertribal powwow musical practices.

Keynote Address (5:20 pm)

Archbishop Franzo King and members of the African Orthodox Church of John Coltrane “The Continued Relevance of John Coltrane”