Post Trauma Blues? John Coltrane vs. Lil Wayne

from CRITICAL NOIR @ Vibe.com

A Love Supreme? John Coltrane, Lil Wayne and the Post-Trauma Blues
by Mark Anthony Neal

In his recent essay "Jazz and Male Blackness", scholar and musician Joao H. Costa Vargas describes the jam sessions held at The World Stage, a storefront workshop and performance space held at Leimart Park in South Central Los Angeles. The workshop was founded in the early 1990s by the late legendary jazz drummer Billy Higgins and spoken word poet Kamau Daaood. In the essay Costa Vargas examines the myriad ways that concepts of black masculinity are rendered, maintained, protected and re-imagined, all in the context of the artistic culture that the workshop facilitates. If there is a model of black masculine aesthetics that is more often than not recalled at the World Stage, it is that of John Coltrane. According to Costa Vargas, "Many of the Stage's musicians attempt to evoke the mood produced by John Coltrane's later performances...Fundamentally, most musicians try to perform Coltrane's spiritual intensity and musical seriousness through their personal renditions of tunes."

That John Coltrane would serve as a centerpiece at the World Stage and like-minded artistic collectives is not surprising, as Coltrane has been lionized by Black Arts communities as few others have been. Recalling Gil Scott Heron's "Lady Day and John Coltrane" ("until our hero rides in, rides in, on his saxophone") or Chuck D's assertion that critics treat him like "Coltrane/insane" the saxophonist has, in some sectors, been elevated to superhero status alongside male contemporaries like El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) and Huey Newton.

Yet the high regard that Coltrane is held is somewhat ironic, given that few, except die-hard fans, know much about the saxophonist's personal life. Whereas figures like Malcolm X, Huey Newton and even jazz peers like Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were highly visible and celebrities in their own right, Coltrane's existed on a much lower public register. Coltrane's transcendent stature instead has much to do with many of the iconic photographs taken of him in later years (Coltrane was only 40 when he died in 1967), where his image became a literal metaphor for artistic and spiritual integrity. And then of course there was the music, especially signature mid-1960s recordings like "Alabama" and A Love Supreme in which Coltrane seemed to draw directly from the traumatic realities of Black America.

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