John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the Music

Edited by prominent musician and scholar Leonard Brown, John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the Music is a timely exploration of Coltrane's sound and its spiritual qualities that are rooted in Black American music-culture and aspirations for freedom. A wide-ranging collection of essays and interviews featuring many of the most eminent figures in Black American music and jazz studies and performance --Tommy Lee Lott, Anthony Brown, Herman Gray, Emmett G. Price III, Tammy Kernodle, Salim Washington, Eric Jackson, TJ Anderson ,Yusef Lateef, Billy Taylor, Olly Wilson, George Russell, and a never before published interview with Elvin Jones — the book examines the full spectrum of Coltrane's legacy. Each work approaches this theme from a different angle, in both historical and contemporary contexts, focusing on how Coltrane became a quintessential example of the universal and enduring qualities of Black American culture.

Leonard Brown is a professional saxophonist, composer and arranger, and Associate Professor of African American Studies and Music at Northeastern University. A Ford Fellow, he served as senior consulting historian and principal ethnomusicologist for the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, and is co-author of Kansas City - And All That's Jazz. Brown is co-founder and producer of the John Coltrane Memorial Concert.

Foreword by T.J. Anderson

Preface by Leonard Brown

1.You Have To Be Invited - Leonard Brown

2. In His Own Words - Leonard Brown

3. John Coltrane and the Practice of Freedom - Herman Gray

4. John Coltrane As the Personification of Spirituality In Black Music - Anthony Brown

5. Freedom Is A Constant Struggle: Alice Coltrane and the Redefining of the Jazz Avante Garde - Tammy Kernodle

6. When Bar Walkers Preach: John Coltrane and The Crisis of the Black Intellectual - Tommy Lee Lott

7. "Don't Let the Devil (Make You) Lose Your Joy": A Look at Late Coltrane - Salim Washington

8. The Spiritual Ethos in Black Music and its Quintessential Exemplar, John Coltrane - Emmett G. Price III

9. Somebody Please Say, Amen! - Eric Jackson

10. Masters on A Master Introduction: Anthony Brown's and Leonard Brown's Interviews with Olly Wilson, Yusef Lateef and Billy Taylor

11. Conversation with Olly Wilson

12. Conversation with Yusef Lateef

13. Conversation with Billy Taylor

14. Coda: George Allen Russell on John Coltrane's Legacy