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The Business of 'Trane
in an article in Guitar Player magazine
I read at the Hingham library,
at 14: spiritual center
of his Baja brain,
and mine now,
for 35 years,
in Boston, in the rain
after a storm...
the storm—it lasted years,
years when I couldn't listen to the fellow,
so powerful his song,
so powerful the memories of loss
and pain, in those early years
I first discovered him
in the basement of the Hingham library:
they had a holding of maybe 20
of his records,
spanning his career;
I chose Sun Ship,
posthumous release
with a colorful photo of him
proudly playing his soprano saxophone
point blank
the year is what struck me: '67
the year that rock had blown,
summer of love and all that;
I figured maybe 'Trane
had absorbed a bit
of the psychedelic sounds
bouncing around, from San Francisco
to Abbey Road:
I listened—or tried to
"gobbledy gook—gobbledy gook..."
is all I heard, up and down
his saxophone—too much
I figured this was a late-career mistake
like so many artists make,
and tried again, with Coltrane
Plays the Blues, Atlantic,
'59, eight years earlier
this was more to my taste
the longing and the dark modal
sweetness, the heavy blues
beat, smooth as a walk
down the street,
or a night in my shady bedroom
with a woman I might meet...
it kept itself in my memory
like a lamp lit up all night,
while I slept;
and when I awoke from my Coltrane slumber
30 years later,
it is still my favorite Coltrane disc,
topping my desert island picks
on my personal profile
online, where I write my columns
and interviews and concert reviews,
for three years now,
back in the business of 'Trane.
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