John McLaughlin: On Coltrane And Spirituality In Music

John McLaughlin recorded To the One with his 4th Dimension band, from left: Mark Mondesir, Gary Husband, McLaughlin and Etienne M'Bappe. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

by NPR Staff

Guitarist John McLaughlin never saw saxophonist John Coltrane perform. The jazz icon died in 1967, before McLaughlin had the chance. But Coltrane's historic 1965 album A Love Supreme has inspired every twist and turn of McLaughlin's career since he first heard it.

"It took me, actually, a year of listening to that record almost every day to finally hear what [Coltrane] was doing musically," McLaughlin says. "The least I can say is that he was very advanced, as a human being and a musician.

"The second thing, and perhaps the more significant, was the poem on the back of the album — the LP, in those days," McLaughlin says. "This record arrived in my hands at a very significant time in my life, when I was starting to ask myself these fundamental questions about life and death, existence — you know, the big questions we all address to ourselves sooner or later.

This poem had such a wonderful effect on me. It was so inspiring and encouraging to me as a young seeker at that time, that I knew the music was really, in a more elegant and eloquent way, speaking about what he wrote about. But I couldn't hear it."

Complete on  ..  http://www.npr.org/2011/01/02/132487200/john-mclaughlin-on-coltrane-and-spirituality-in-music?ft=1&f=1039