By Susan Torres
In the basement of Behrakis Health Sciences Center, a small group of jazz enthusiasts came to hear four professors discuss the significance of legendary musician John Coltrane. Event panelists Dr. Anthony Brown, Dr. Tommy Lee Lott, Dr. Emmett G. Price III and Dr. Leonard Brown each brought their own views of Coltrane’s effects on society and music.
“The power of sound, it touched us all in certain ways,” said Leonard Brown, associate professor of African-American studies in music. “His music is universal.”
During the first-ever public pre-concert symposium, each professor expressed his own views on the legacy John Coltrane has left and what he accomplished during his life. Despite many differences from one presentation to the next, the themes of race, spirituality and freedom were prevalent in each of the speaker’s presentations.
Lott, a professor of philosophy at San Jose State University, shared his experience meeting Coltrane. While growing up in Los Angeles, he saw Coltrane perform at different clubs at least once a year. Lott said he remembers how the performance was consistently exciting.
“There’s a thing about ‘Trane playing live that can’t get on a record,” he said.
As a philosopher, Lott explained a different aspect of Coltrane’s importance – many historians overemphasize the significance and intellect of writers and artists, while not giving musicians the same courtesy.
For example, Lott said that during the Harlem Renaissance, extensive praise was given to people like Langston Hughes, who said Coltrane “was like a philosopher; he should be treated like an intellectual.” Lott argued that all of Coltrane’s experimenting with music during his career shows an intelligence many historians pass over.
Coltrane was “a better model of African-American culture than the Harlem Renaissance,” Lott said.
Prior to the drumkit, drums were used mostly for marching music in bands or when at war. After the drum set was invented, the beat changed, as did music. As Lott put it, “All the music we [African-Americans] learned we transformed.”
As the event’s final speaker, Price, an assistant professor of music and African-American studies, seemed to preach to the audience. During his energetic presentation, Price’s remarks went from the music of slave time to Coltrane to Tupac without missing a beat.
“Coltrane was so ahead of his time that maybe 30 years isn’t enough for us all to understand him yet,” he said. Price compared Tupac to Coltrane by saying some of the music of each musician was not heard even years after their deaths.
John Martin, an undecided freshman, said he heard about the symposium and tribute concert in his jazz class with Price.
“I personally walked in not knowing what to expect but it was such an enlightening experience,” Martin said. “They covered so much more than I thought they would.”
Martin told his friend Chris Lolbardozzi, a University of Rhode Island freshman and the person Martin credits with introducing him to jazz, to attend the day’s events.
“My father’s a jazz musician and I learned jazz piano,” Lolbardozzi said.
The tribute concert itself was the 28th annual, and has been held at Northeastern for the past 19 years. The concert, in Blackman Auditorium on Oct., 1, featured the McCoy Tyner Trio and Gary Bartz.
Over the years, the featured artists have previously played with the likes of Elvin Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Bette Midler, George Michael, Jimmy Garrison and John Coltrane himself. The concert lasted two hours with a brief intermission.
The stage was decorated with white flowing curtains and colored lights that alternated depending on the mood of the song. The auditorium was sold out, and the crowd was attentive and responsive to the performances. Audience members nodded their heads and shouted their approval.
“I didn’t know what to expect but it was amazing,” said Luke Shaheen, a sophomore electrical engineering major. “The bass player was amazing. It was indescribable.”
Yet as the presenters stressed during the symposium, Coltrane was still just a human being, despite all of his talents and achievements. As his cousin and founder of the John W. Coltrane Cultural Society Mary Alexander said at the symposium, “John was always just John.”
