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photo Impulse! Records/via Wikimedia Commons
John Coltrane in the mid 1960s
Born 100 years ago today, September 23, 1926
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My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being…When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups…I want to speak to their souls.
-John Coltrane
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His Sound is Sacred
he blows a mighty sound
…..lifts every roof within hearing skyward
…..lilts and sets every foot dancing
…..…..mourns and a sea of tears flows
…..…..raves and all rise in righteous anger
…..…..joy prayer hope despair
…..……….whispers and elicits tears
…..……….he speaks through a horn of plenty
…..……………that touches all that is human
…..……………unleashes all for which we yearn
…..……………a titan his horn defines all we
…..……………might be ….etches aspiration in sound
he is Big John the one and only
…..….Trane coming down the tracks of sound
…..……………on fire high low and in between
…..….Coltrane
…..….John Coltrane
…..….with a sound supreme
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by Michael L. Newell
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Watch the first-ever official music video for John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme: “Acknowledgement,” filmed at the legendary Van Gelder Studio. [John Coltrane]
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Michael L. Newell lived on the Atlantic Coast of Florida. His most recent book of poems is Passage of a Heart. Click here to read “What is this Path” – a collection of his poems published on Jerry Jazz Musician
Editor’s Note: Michael passed away on July 31, 2026, at the age of 80. He submitted “His Sound is Sacred” to me in September, 2025. It has never been published before.
Click here to read my personal remembrance of him.
Joe Maita
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