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An Interview With John Coltrane

If you know of any links to information about the people mentioned in this interview (Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Rashied Ali, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, John Gilmore, Archie Shepp), please tell me about them! Send an email to
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The following is a transcription made by Brad Baker (bpb@mlb.cca.rockwell.com) of a cassette recording of an interview with John Coltrane. Everything is the result of his work, except for the few links that I've put in. "The copy of the tape used here was several generations old, complete with tape dropouts, etc. There are sounds of children at play and automobile sounds in the background."
The interview is by Frank Kofsky, and has been published in his book " Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music". Excerpts from his update of this book are also available online. Note Frank Kofsky was a professor in the Department of History, California State University, Sacramento. He passed away in November 1997.

FK: "The people I was staying with have a friend, a young lady, and she was at, downtown at one of Malcolm X's addresses, speeches, and lo and behold who should plop down in the seat next to her but John Coltrane..." < laughs>
JC: < chuckles> "Yeah".
FK: "...so right away that whetted my curiosity and I wanted to know how many times you had seen him and what you thought of him when you saw him and so forth."
JC: "That was the only time..."
FK: "Were you impressed with him?"
JC: "Definitely... definitely."
< both try to talk>
FK: "Oh, go on..."
JC: "Well, that was the only time. I had to..., I felt I had to see the man... you know... and, I was livin' downtown, I was in a hotel, an I..., I saw the posters, that he was gonna be over there..., so I..., I just said 'well I'm goin' over there' you know, and see this cat, because I'd never seen him, and..., I was quite impressed."
FK: "That was one of his last speeches wasn't it"
JC: "Towards the end of his... career."
FK: "...Some musicians have said that there's a relationship between, some of Malcolm's ideas and the music, especially the new music. Do you think there's any thing in that?"
JC: "... Well, I think that, music, ...ah being expression, ...of the human heart, of the... human, of being itself, does express just what is happening..."
FK: "So then if..." < John starts> "...oh."
JC: "...ah, I feel that it express... it expresses the whole thing. ...The whole of the human experience at the particular time that it is being expressed."
FK: "What do you thing of the phrase 'the new black music' as a description of some of the newer styles... in jazz?"
JC: "Well, ...... I don't know. Phrases ah, it, I don't know it ... They don't mean much to me. ..., in a sense because usually I don't make the phrases, so I mean..."
FK: "That's right."
JC: "...I don't, < laugh> I don't react so much to 'em I mean it makes no difference to me one way or another what its called."
FK: "If you did make the phrases, could you think of one..."
JC: "I don't know what the hell I, ...I don't think I have a phrase, I don't have the... I don't think there's a phrase for it. See what I'm sayin'?"
FK: "The people..."
JC: "...that I could make."
FK: "The people who use that phrase argue that jazz's particularly related to the black unity, and it's an expression of what's happening there, that's why I asked you about your reaction to Malcolm".
JC: "Well I think it, ...I think its up to the individual where you can... call it what you may, for any reason you may. My self I, ...I recognize the artist, ...and I, ...and I recognize an individual, I see his contribution and, when I know a man's sound, well to me, that's him. ...You know, that's just man, and that's what I recognize, and all that... labels I don't bother with."
FK: "But it does seem to be a fact that most of the, changes in the music, the innovations have come from black musicians."
JC: "Yeah well this is... how this is..."
FK: "Have you ever noticed, since you've played all over the United States and in all kind of circstances, have you ever noticed that the reaction of an audience varies, changes if its a black audience, a white audience or a mixed audience? Have you ever, seen that the racial composition of the audience seems to determine how the people respond?"
JC: "Well, sometimes 'yes' and sometimes 'no'."
FK: "Any examples?"
JC: "Well, no I mean sometimes it might... it might appear to be... one, you might say well... It's hard to say, man, you know sometimes people like it or don't like it no matter what color they are."
FK: "It... you don't have any preferences yourself about what kind of an audience you play for..."
JC: "Well to me, ...it doesn't matter..."
FK: "What kind of.."
JC: "...I just, I only hope that whoever's out there listening, I hope they're enjoying it. That's the, you know if they're not enjoying it... you have an idea..."
FK: "If people do enjoy the music, how would you like them to demonstrate this? Do you like an audience that's perfectly still and unresponsive or do you like an audience that, reacts more visibly to the music?"
JC: "Well, I guess I like an audience that, that does show its ah, you know, what they feel. ...that responds."
FK: "I remember sometimes when you played the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco you really got, that kind of an audience that you didn't get when you played in Shelley's Mann Hole in Los Angeles and it seemed to me that that had some effect on the music..."
JC: "...It seems to me that the, that the audience, the parti..the audience by... in listening there is an active participation goin' on there you know and... and when you know that somebody is, maybe moved or... the same way that you are to such degree or approaching degree, ...its just like having another member in the group."
FK: "Is that what happened at the Ascension date? The people who were there... did they get that involved, for example?"
JC: "I...I don't know ah... I was so doggone busy, till, I mean... I was worried to death. That was my, you know that was the way I felt... I couldn't really enjoy the date as if it hadn't of been a date. If it hadn't of been a date then I would have really enjoyed it. The date I'm.. trying to get.. you know, time and everything set and I was just too busy myself. But I don't know.. I hope they... felt something... to hear the record, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed all of the individual contributions..."
FK: "Well its a beautiful record. ...and its probably the one record that I've had to listen to the most number of times to get at everything that's happening."
JC: "We got another take out on it now. Did you know that?"
FK: "That's what Bob Thiele told me he said he'd mail me the other one."
JC: "Yeah."
FK: "What you think then about playing concerts. Does that seem to inhibit the interaction between yourself, your group and the audience?"
JC: "Well, on concerts, I... the only thing that bugs me on concerts is... might be a hall with poor acoustics or acoustics which we can't quite get the unit sound see... but as far as the audience, its about the same."
FK: "I wasn't too impressed with the acoustics in Friday night's concert..."
JC: "Mmm, no, I wasn't either."
FK: "...I was sitting right down front so I could hear most of what was going on but even then it didn't sound..."
JC: "Nah, I couldn't feel - I couldn't feel it."
FK: "You can tell when the musicians - they can't hear each other and therefore they can't get themselves.."
JC: "No its - its just like the wind, you're blowin' through the wind."
FK: "Yeah < laughs> . ...Another reason I asked you about Malcolm was because -, you know, I've interviewed about a dozen and a half musicians by this time and the consensus seems to be that, especially the younger musicians talk about those kind of political and social issues that Malcolm talked about, when they're with each other, and, some of them say that they try and express this in the music. Do you find that in your own groups or in the musicians you're friendly with that ... these issues are important and you do talk about them?"
JC: "Oh well they're definitely important. And as I said they are - the issues are part... of what IS... you know at this time."

the rest on here: http://www.geocities.com/a_habib/Jazz/coltrane.html