Music Talks in Ambitious Coltrane Bio

Jazz saxophonist John Coltrane was only 40 years old when he died in 1967. But, like others whose lives were cut short in that turbulent decade, his influence has continued to grow in size and scope.

Musically, the impact of his breakthroughs as an improvising artist has touched most jazz artists--saxophonists in particular--who have come to age in the post-’60s era. Culturally, his presence as an African American icon has been more subtle, if equally pervasive. (One of the more unusual examples is the Bay Area’s St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church.)

The public radio documentary “Tell Me How Long Trane’s Been Gone,” which will be broadcast on KCRW-FM (89.9) today starting at noon, is an ambitious, five hour exploration of Coltrane’s life and times, told through career-spanning selections of his music, with narrative commentary from the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Sonny Rollins, Sun Ra, and Coltrane’s widow, Alice.

In taking on such a complex artist, producer Steve Rowland and writer Larry Abrams faced a task not unlike that which confronted Ken Burns with his massive, 10-hour TV documentary on jazz. In Burns’ case, the primary criticism he encountered was related to his decision to compact the last 40 years of jazz history into the final episode of his series.

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Curiously, in an odd, if unrelated, reversal, the Coltrane documentary has opened the potential for comparable criticism. In this case, however, it is because Rowland and Abrams have elected to focus perhaps half of their coverage on the final third of Coltrane’s career. Given the extent to which Coltrane’s activities became linked to the civil rights movements of the ‘60s, it’s not a surprising choice. And the presence of poetry excerpts from writers such as Amiri Baraka, Sekou Sundiata and Jayne Cortez (whose poem “How Long Has the Trane Been Gone” inspires the documentary’s title) tends to emphasize the connection.

In this case, however, the decision to contrast the Coltrane music of the ‘60s--with its emphasis upon spiritually oriented, collective spontaneity--with the more mainstream-connected, harmonic explorations of his earlier work is a reasoned and legitimate choice. The viewpoint behind that choice is directly stated near the opening of the first hour, in which narrator (and poet) Michael Harper notes of Coltrane, “His greatest contribution was not stylistic. Coltrane brought the devotional core of African American music to jazz. In doing so, Trane brought the music home.”

That’s an arguable point, on many counts, not the least of which is the documentary’s tendency to view Coltrane’s many creative breakthroughs as stages leading toward his final years, rather than as major artistic accomplishments in their own right. But it is, nonetheless, an argument worth making. And those who take the time to hear the entire documentary will be challenged intellectually and musically, regardless of whether they choose to weigh in on the side of form or on the side of content; on the side of Coltrane as virtuosic musical innovator or shamanistic cultural icon.

At the end of the day, Coltrane’s music--as it is thoroughly displayed in this compelling documentary--provides ample sustenance for all those points of view, as well as many others.

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“Tell Me How Long Trane’s Been Gone” can be heard today from noon to 5 p.m. on KCRW-FM (89.9).