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Dominic Vance

LARTS 111

Prof. Hegland

December 7, 2020

A Divinity Supreme: John Coltrane, Creativity, and Spirituality

Throughout history, renowned musicians have frequently adopted onstage personas to

complement their creative output. Jazz music is no exception. Miles Davis, arguably jazz’s most

well-known figure (and often known as the “Prince of Darkness”), cultivated a public image of

mystery and introspection; this façade undoubtedly aided his career, as it perfectly suited the

contemplative mood of many of his albums, such as Kind of Blue. Likewise, artists such as

Thelonious Monk and Sun Ra sold their groundbreaking and eccentric music to the public by

embracing idiosyncrasies, such as wearing flamboyant costumes and dancing mid-performance.

With this in mind, one might ask how John William Coltrane, a serene and unassuming

figure who rarely gave public interviews, has received such general adulation for his

musicianship and creativity. Though the saxophonist was musically active for a far shorter time

period than many of his renowned peers (he died in 1967 at the age of 40), he has garnered an

equal – and possibly greater – status in jazz’s pantheon. In searching for an explanation, we

discover the inner flame that lit Coltrane’s creative streak: his deep spirituality. As evidenced by

his work, the most important factor in supporting the creative personality is a sense of spirituality

and purpose – divinely influenced or otherwise.

In 1957, John Coltrane was struggling. Just two years earlier, he had been hired for the

most coveted job in jazz – as a sideman for Miles Davis’ quintet. Musicians and critics alike took

note of his rise to stardom (Kahn 22-23). Now, however, his personal life – and his career – was
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being bogged down by the two demons that had haunted scores of ‘50s jazz musicians: alcohol

and heroin. Coltrane, who had a reputation for being polite and responsible, began arriving late

to performances; whenever he would inevitably show up, his playing was inhibited by “dope

sickness” (Davis & Troupe 209). Even Davis, himself a recovering heroin addict, took exception

to Coltrane’s actions, such as “playing in clothes that looked like he had slept in them for days,

all wrinkled up and dirty” (Davis & Troupe 212).

Finally, after a multitude of frustrated outbursts, Davis had had enough. Citing his

“junkie” antics as cause for termination, he fired Coltrane in April of ’57 (Kahn 24). For

Coltrane, this constituted a massive fall from grace; it would be extremely difficult to salvage his

career after being fired by the world’s most prominent bandleader, and he ashamedly fled New

York for his hometown of Philadelphia.

It was in the midst of this period of turmoil that Coltrane underwent what he later termed

a “spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life” (DeVito

225). This realization coincided with his going “cold turkey” to kick his heroin habit, and

eventually led to a career renaissance (Kahn 25). Though there are countless examples of jazz

musicians who experienced musical resurgences after quitting drugs (Davis, saxophonist Jackie

McLean, and drummer Art Blakey come to mind), Coltrane instead emphasized the spiritual

component of his rebirth, and would attribute his success to it for the rest of his career.

The concept of divinely (or spiritually) inspired creativity has existed for centuries. Plato

believed that whenever a poet conceived a new work, he was actually being controlled by the

Muses (Paul & Kaufman 3). This view of creativity was prevalent in the West throughout

subsequent centuries – particularly during Medieval times, when nearly all of Europe’s creative

output was tied to the Church in some way, shape, or form (Niu & Sternberg 22).
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The tides began to turn for divinely-inspired creativity, however, in the 14th and 15th

century with the advent of the Renaissance. The rapid growth of universities throughout Europe

gave rise to the Humanist movement, wherein the movement’s intellectual leaders, according to

Harvard University history professor James Hankins, “reduced the divine to the human … and

based philosophical reflection on a conception of the human being as a purely biological entity

… without an immaterial spiritual nature” (Hankins 30-31). The subsequent scientific advances

of the Enlightenment expedited this trend, and by the 1800s the general perception of creativity

in the West had been completely altered “by delineating a concept of individual creativity

completely separated from the creativity of a God or a set of gods” (Niu & Steinberg 23).

Thus, when Coltrane began introducing spirituality into his music, he was essentially

reviving the long-dead concept of divinely-inspired creativity. There is very little documentation

of his spiritual rebirth in 1957; Coltrane was an intensely private man, and declined to disclose

the full extent of his awakening – even to his then-wife, Naima. The only direct narrative we

have of this event is his own brief account within the liner notes of his seminal work, 1964’s A

Love Supreme. In these notes, Coltrane states that, after receiving God’s grace, he “humbly asked

to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music. I feel this has been

granted through His grace” (DeVito 225).

Though the exact nature of this “spiritual awakening” will in all likelihood remain lost to

history, what is undeniable is the fact that Coltrane’s creative output – as well as his career

trajectory – skyrocketed upward after 1957. Shortly after kicking his drug addiction, he

embarked upon a successful yearlong tenure with pianist Thelonious Monk. Among their

frequent audience members was Davis, who later remarked, “man, he [Coltrane] was playing

great, sounding good with Monk” (Davis & Troupe 216). Davis subsequently rehired Coltrane,
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whose performance on their albums to follow received more acclaim than ever before

– particularly on 1959’s Kind of Blue, which remains the best-selling jazz record of all time.

From there, Coltrane left Davis’ quintet and turned his attention toward his own albums,

which were met with laud from critics and the general public alike (Kahn 31). Of particular

significance was 1959’s Giant Steps, which is regarded as one of the most influential jazz

records ever for its use of modality – all the while showcasing Coltrane’s newly developed

method of virtuosic improvisation, termed “sheets of sound” by critic Ira Gitler (Kahn 29).

Up until this point, Coltrane had been reticent to directly link his newfound creativity to

his spirituality. This all changed in 1965, with the release of his previous year’s work A Love

Supreme, which is considered to be second only to Kind of Blue in the jazz canon. The album is

set as a four-part suite; the movements are titled “Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,”

“Pursuance,” and the most overtly spiritual of them all, “Psalm.” Coltrane describes this

movement as a “musical narration” of a poem that Coltrane included in his liner notes (DeVito

226). Remarkably, upon examining the text and simultaneously listening to the track, one can

clearly tell that the rhythms of Coltrane’s saxophone directly mirror the speaking rhythms and

accents of this prayer, which serves to extol God and closes with the lines, “ELATION

– ELEGANCE – EXALATION – / All from God. / Thank you God. Amen” (DeVito 225, 228).

The spiritual nature evident in A Love Supreme would persist throughout Coltrane’s

subsequent work up until his untimely death in 1967. The recordings made after the release of A

Love Supreme bore distinctly religious titles such as: “Vigil”; “Offering”; and “The Father and

the Son and the Holy Ghost” (Kahn 175-76). It is important to note that Coltrane did not adhere

to any one religious creed; though raised Methodist, Coltrane began fervently exploring other
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faiths, eventually declaring to Nat Hentoff in the liner notes for 1966’s Meditations, “I believe in

all religions” (DeVito 263).

Nowhere was this religious exploration more apparent than in his 1965 album Om.

Recorded in the midst of Coltrane’s recurring fascination with Indian spirituality, Om consists of

a single 29-minute-long track featuring free collective improvisation. Of most relevance is that

the track begins with all of the musicians simultaneously reciting a passage from the sacred

Hindu text Bhagavad Gita, followed by an intonement of the sacred syllable “om”. Though often

interspersed with his Christian viewpoints, this sense of Eastern spirituality would not leave

Coltrane until his death.

It is easy to dismiss works such as Om as merely a creative “phase” of Coltrane’s career.

In fact, most critics did just that; Om was the only Coltrane album reviewed quite negatively

upon its release, and only recently has begun to gain favor among the cognoscenti (Proefrock

2020).

However, when we consider the nature of Eastern perceptions of creativity, we discover

that Coltrane may have been on to something far deeper and more philosophical than it may

seem. Generally, there is a stronger link between religion and creativity in Eastern cultures than

in the West.

Many researchers have argued that culture plays a massive role in determining which

creative fields one migrates toward. Renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi states that a

culture will only grant “creative” status to an individual whose work is “understandable to

others” and “pass[es] muster with the experts in the field” – hence the reason that the works of

Dmitri Mendel and Nicolaus Copernicus weren’t widely lauded during their lifetimes
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(Andreasen 15-16). As a result, University of Hawaii professor Dharm Bhawuk postulates that

“people strive to excel in areas that are valued in a culture” (2).

Accordingly, Bhawuk points out, the Indian culture tends to value spirituality more so

than in the West (2). Thus, Indian society has produced a large number of eminent spiritual gurus

over the past 2500 years – even within the space of the 20th century, such as Maharishi Mahesh

Yogi and Osho Rajneesh (Bhawuk 5, 11-16). Since India never experienced an equivalent of the

humanist movement or the Enlightenment, the divine was never, in Hankins’ words “reduced to

the human”; hence, these gurus were not only able to use their creative gifts for spiritual

purposes, but were also actively encouraged to do so by the society around them.

John Coltrane undoubtedly enjoyed Indian music for its own sake; as early as January

1962, he had mentioned meeting sitarist Ravi Shankar, and had been listening to Indian records

to immerse himself in their distinctive timbres (DeVito 115). However, he was also a musician

whose expressed purpose was to communicate spiritual ideas to the public. He asserted that the

“true powers of music are still unknown”, and that “to be able to control them should be… the

ambition of every musician” (DeVito 182). Thus, in this quest to unite his spiritual and musical

selves, he was deeply drawn to Eastern music and philosophies, where the idea of divinely-

inspired creativity had not yet died, as it had in the West.

Clearly, Coltrane’s spirituality deeply aided his creative output; however, one will

inevitably ask why this should be true of other musicians – particularly those who are not openly

religious.

Coltrane himself has an interesting answer for this question. In a 1958 interview, he states

his belief that “the majority of musicians are interested in truth. If you play and make a

statement, a musical statement … that’s a truth right there in itself. So in order to play those
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kinds of things, to play truth, you’ve got to live with as much truth as possible” (DeVito 14). As

a result of this innate need for truth among musicians, Coltrane says, all of his colleagues “seem

to be searching, trying to find some way” (DeVito 15).

Coltrane’s view of his associate’s spirituality intensely mirrors my own. Though I have

very few friends in music who are actively practicing a specific faith, most of them describe

themselves as “spiritual but not religious”.

Even to readers who are actively non-spiritual, the idea of spirituality in creativity can

prove useful. When examining the characteristics of creativity, philosopher and Bucknell

University professor Gary Steiner noted that creators “are often described as having conviction

approaching zeal” (20). This could suggest that maybe spirituality in and of itself is not the

ultimate cause of creativity, but rather the unwavering conviction that comes with it.

Creativity can be harnessed from a number of different sources. Many believe that major

events early in a person’s life can shape creative ideas. Others point to a potential link between

extraordinary creativity and mental illness (Jamison 63). Still others point to nature, romance,

and even other art forms as fonts of creative inspiration. Nevertheless, the concept of divinely-

inspired creativity has likely not been exhausted to its full capabilities – and the music and life of

John Coltrane serves as an example of what is possible when this concept is utilized.
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Works Cited

Andreasen, Nancy C. The Creative Brain: the Science of Genius. Plume, 2006.

Bhawuk, Dharm. “Culture's influence on creativity: The case of Indian

sprituality.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2003.

Davis, Miles, and Quincy Troupe. Miles the Autobiography. Macmillan/Pan Books/Picador Ed.,

1990.

DeVito, Chris, and John Coltrane. Coltrane on Coltrane: the John Coltrane Interviews. Chicago

Review Press, 2012.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: the Story of Success. Penguin Books, 2009.

Hankins, James. The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge University

Press, 2007.

Jamison, Kay Redfield. “Manic-Depressive Illness, Genes, and Creativity.” Genetics and Mental

Illness, 1996, pp. 111–132.

Kahn, Ashley. A Love Supreme: the Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album. Viking, 2002.
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Niu, Weihua, and Robert J. Sternberg. “The Philosophical Roots of Western and Eastern

Conceptions of Creativity.” Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, vol.

26, no. 1-2, 2006, pp. 18–38.

Paul, Elliot Samuel, and Scott Barry Kaufman. The Philosophy of Creativity: New Essays.

Oxford University Press, 2017.

Proefrock, Stacia. “Om - John Coltrane: Songs, Reviews, Credits.” AllMusic,

www.allmusic.com/album/om-mw0000198503.

Steiner, Gary A. The Creative Organization. University of Chicago Press, 1965.