Summary
John Coltrane, one of the most influential and important musicians and composers of the 20th 
century, began to inspire jazz musicians and American poets in the 1960s with the Black Arts 
Movement poets. His music was interpreted and used for the promotion of political ideas in the 
poetics of Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Muhammad T oure, Larry Neal and others. #is is the 
political Coltrane poetry. On the other hand, Coltrane’s music inspired another kind of poets, the 
musical poets, which began to emerge in the 1970s. In this case, the poetry reflects the true nature 
of Coltrane’s spiritual music quest. #e poets belonging to this group, like Michael S. Harper, 
William Matthews, Jean Valentine, Cornelius Eady, Philip Levine, Nathaniel Mackey and others, 
go beyond politics, beyond race or gender. #e paper will examine the first type of the Coltrane 
poetry,  where Coltrane’s music was used to promote the political ideas of the Black Art Movement 
in connection with the political movement of Malcolm X. #ese poets changed, rearticulated and 
shifted Coltrane’s spiritually musical message towards the principles of the black nationalism. 
Keywords: American poetry, jazz poetry, poetry and politics, Black Arts Movement, African-
American poetry, influence of music on poetry, John Coltrane, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez
 Povzetek
John Coltrane je eden najvplivnejših in najpomembnejših glasbenikov in skladateljev 20. 
stoletja, saj je njegova glasba spremenila svet jazza in svet poezije ter postavila nova merila v 
obeh umetniških krogih. Bil je navdih jazz glasbenikom in ameriškim pesnikom že v šestdesetih 
letih prejšnjega stoletja, saj so pesniki gibanja Black Arts kot npr. Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, 
Askia Muhammad T oure, Larry Neal in drugi interpretirali njegovo glasbo v smislu politične 
propagande. Glasba Johna Coltranea pa je navdihovala tudi drugo, glasbeno vrsto poezije, ki 
se je pričela pojavljati v sedemdesetih letih 20. stoletja in je izražala resnično duhovno sporočilo 
Coltraneove glasbe. Pesniki Michael S. Harper, William Matthews, Jean Valentine, Cornelius 
Eady, Philip Levine in Nathaniel Mackey kot pripadniki te skupine so pisali poezijo onkraj 
politike, spola ali rasne tematike. Članek se osredotoča na prvo, to je politično dimenzijo 
Coltraneove glasbe kot vodilo političnih idej gibanja Black Arts v povezavi s politično vizijo 
Malcolma X. Ti pesniki so spremenili in premaknili Coltraneovo duhovno glasbeno sporočilo v 
sfere črnskega nacionalizma. 
Ključne besede: Ameriška poezija, jazz poezija, poezija in politika, Black Arts gibanje, afriško-
ameriška poezija, vpliv glasbe na poezijo, John Coltrane, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez
 DOI: 10.4312/elope.4.1-2.81-98

John Coltrane is considered one of the most important musicians of the 20th century. He 
was a hugely influential musician, who reshaped modern jazz and changed other forms of 
music at various times, since each stage of his musicianship introduced a new style and 
movement in the musical development of the 20th century. Along with tenor saxophonists 
Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Sonny Rollins, Coltrane fundamentally altered the 
playing techniques and the style for the instrument. His massive influence on mainstream and 
avantgarde jazz began during his lifetime and continued to grow after his death, so Coltrane 
is considered to be one of the most dominant influences on post-1960 jazz saxophonists and 
musicians, and has inspired an entire generation of jazz musicians.
However, Coltrane’s playing style and compositions did not only influence the world of jazz, 
but exerted a huge influence on American poetry, which is also why Coltrane is the most 
often represented jazz musician in American poetry: “Coltrane has probably been the focus 
of more poems than any other jazz musician, but the portraits of the man and his music 
vary as much as his own creative endeavors – from bebop and modal music, to hard bop and 
sheets of sound, and eventually to free jazz” (Feinstein 1991, xix).
#e occurences of the figure of John Coltrane in American poetry were so common that 
critics and writers began to talk about the genre of the “Coltrane poem”: “#e ‘Coltrane’ 
poem has, in fact, become an unmistakable genre in black poetry” (Benston 1977, 773).
#e Coltrane poem became a genre not only in African American poetry but in American 
poetry in general, and also in poetry on other continents. Poets, white and black, began to 
write poetry dedicated to the great saxophone player. However, the Coltrane poem took 
two directions. #e first type of Coltrane poetry are the ‘musical’ poets, where the poetry 
reflects the true nature of Coltrane’s spiritual music quest. #e poets belonging to this 
group, like Michael S. Harper, William Matthews, Jean Valentine, Cornelius Eady, Philip 
Levine, Nathaniel Mackey and others, go beyond politics, beyond race or gender. #e 
second type of Coltrane poetry is ‘political’ Coltrane poetry, connected with the Black Arts 
Movement, especially in the 1960s, which includes poets like Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, 
Jayne Cortez, Larry Neal, Haki Madhubuti, Askia Muhammad Toure and others. In the 
case of these poets, Coltrane’s music was used to promote the political ideas of the Black Art 
Movements in connection with the political movement of Malcolm X. #ese poets changed, 
rearticulated and shifted Coltrane’s spiritually musical message towards the principles of the 
black nationalism. 

#e beginnings of the political Coltrane poetry go back into the 1950s when the US society 
was haunted by severe racism, especially in the South, where black and white people were legally 
separated. It can be seen as resembling apartheid in South Africa, but in America racism was 
backed up by organisations like the Ku Klux Klan. #e Northern states claimed formal racial 
equality, although the reality was different, which is also seen in many reactions by poets to the 
social situation, best summed up by Langston Hughes in the poem “Harlem”:
What happens to a dream deferred?  
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?  
Or fester like a sore−and then run?  
Does it stink like rotten meat?  
Or crust and sugar over−like a syrupy sweet?  
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.  
Or does it explode?
And the situation did, indeed, explode. On 1 December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, 
the black woman  Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. #e 
consequences of her arrest were a year-long Montgomery bus boycott, which went so far that the 
bus companies had to desegregate the buses. #e leader and initiator of the new movement was 
Martin Luther King.
#e new social situation also influenced jazz musicians such as the tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins,
1
 
who recorded his groundbreaking album Freedom Suite in 1958. #e album is revolutionary 
from more than a musical standpoint. Kofsky claims that this album represents the “first time 
a political message was so clearly attached to a piece of music by a black jazz musician” (Kofsky 
1970, 50). Sonny Rollins openly stated his opinion about the situation in the States in the liner 
notes to the album:
2
 “America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms, its humor, its 
music. How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America’s culture 
as its own, is being persecuted and repressed, that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities 
in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity” (Rollins 1958).
#e year following Freedom Suite, the composer/bassist Charles Mingus recorded his “Fables of 
Faubus” on the album Mingus Ah Um, which had been intended to include lyrics for his stance 
against desegregation. However, the record label Columbia insisted that the album be recorded 
only instrumentally. One year after Mingus’ album, the drummer Max Roach recorded We 


Insist! Freedom Now Suite, which clearly promoted a political message. #e album presented 
Roach’s political awareness, which had already become apparent in his 1958 recording Deeds, 
Not Words. #is work can be easily connected with the Civil Rights Movement, as confirmed 
by the last two tunes of the album, “All Africa” and “Tears for Johannesburg,” showing the 
Civil Rights Movement struggle for rights and freedom in the USA and the struggle for 
independence of African Americans and Africans as well.  Feinstein connects jazz in this sense 
with Hughes’s deferred dream, questioning whether jazz could have been some sort of warning 
to “white America”, an instrument for promoting political and cultural ideas: “Was jazz a 
warning to white America, a pounding of the drums that the savages were loose and waiting 
to avenge themselves? Was this Langston Hughes’s deferred dream now exploding?” (Feinstein 
1997, 63)
#e rasist tensions continued, and in 1963 Martin Luther King decided to launch a non-
violent assault on Birmingham, Alabama, which was still the capital of segregation. #e jails of 
Birmingham were becoming filled with 2,500 protesters; however the authorities had to give 
in, which represented the greatest victory for the civil rights movement. #e protests had a 
massive impact, since in the following ten weeks 758 demonstrations against racism took place 
and 14,753 arrests were made in 186 US cities, with the historic march on Washington as the 
high point. However, the situation deteriorated when on the Sunday morning of 15 September 
1963 a bomb, planted by white racists in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 
Birmingham, killed four black girls aged between 11 and 14.
3
#e music, especially jazz in its freer form again reflected the social situation that emerged in the 
USA. Many jazz musicians, like Sonny Rollins, showed their anger by openly supporting the new 
radical movement of Malcolm X. In this case, music reflected the social situation and also reacted 
against it. Derek Wright says that jazz and literature should not be taken out of the social context: 
literature and jazz should not be discussed as though they are completely separate things, 
in reality, they are both subsets of a larger culture, and they cannot be taken out of that 
context. Both of these art forms seek to express the realities of life as experienced by the 
artist. You can’t begin to understand jazz as an art by simply discussing its musicality, 
without addressing the broader social and cultural forces at work. It’s not enough to talk 
about this musician’s solo or that musician’s composition, without understanding the 
experience that led the musician to write the song or to play the solo the way they did. 
(Wright 1996)
Wright continues to draw the connection between music and social context: “It was an 
outpouring of deep anger, dissatisfaction, or remorse that related to the conditions the artists 
found themselves in. #e world around the artists had a massive effect on their playing and the 
moods they conveyed” (Wright 1996).


#is holds true for jazz musicians such as Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Archie Shepp and 
Max Roach, where the political and social context played an important role. Martin Smith sees 
Mingus, Roach and Rollins as the three key jazz musicians who supported the movement.
4
 Smith 
even mentions the codified message in Coltrane’s music, which many poets and movement 
leaders attached to Coltrane. However, I maintain that such was not the case for Coltrane’s music 
and personality; the highly spiritual thinking in his music had nothing to do with the political 
context. #is does not mean that Coltrane was unaware of the happenings surrounding him, but 
his music did not reflect the politically militant context around him, at least not consciously. His 
music served Coltrane’s own spiritual purpose, in contrast to the political awareness and activism 
of the music of Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Archie Shepp or Max Roach.
 Poets like Amiri Baraka, who was one of the main followers of Black Nationalism, used not 
only the figure of Coltrane to make political statements regarding the position of the Negro in 
America, but also jazz musicians such as #elonious Monk, Albert Ayler or Ornette Coleman, 
as we can see in Baraka’s poem “In #e T radition,” where the jazz musicians John Coltrane and 
Albert Ayler, the funk/pop icon Stevie Wonder and the black political leader Malcolm X are all 
on the same level, carrying the title #e Black Arts:
But just as you rise up to gloat I scream COLTRANE! STEVIE WONDER!
  MALCOLM X!
  ALBERT AYLER!
  THE BLACK ARTS!
#e last line of the “In the T radition” example shows, how important was the Black Arts 
Movement, to which Baraka belonged to. For the Black Arts Movement, music, especially 
Coltrane’s music, was a fountain of ideas and it served the movement as a model for black 
expression in arts. Music, along with writing and other arts, was seen as a vehicle to fight rasism 
and oppression, while at the same time promoting the political stance, as we can see in Baraka’s 
poem “Black Art,” which reveals the poets’ and the movement’s political ideas:
We want a black poem. And a
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak #is Poem
Silently
Or LOUD
#e main concepts for the Black Arts Movement were put down in Larry Neal’s 1968 essay “#e 
Black Arts Movement,” where Neal explains that the movement’s programme has basically four 


parts: an assumption that its basis is already in place; second, the destruction of the “white thing” 
is a main motivation; third, it takes into account black interests; and fourth, it is, inherently, 
an ethical movement. Neal continued with his political and artistic manifesto in his poetry. In 
1969, he wrote the poem “Black Boogaloo” with the message of how black music should be a 
source of inspiration for black writers to promote the ideas of liberation and black power. Neal’s 
ideas are written in the same aggressive tone as Baraka’s:
Stop bitching. T ake care of business. All get together all over America
and play at the same time. Combine energy. Combine energy. Play to-
gether. Wild screaming sounds 
…
Calling all Black People.
Calling all Black people.
However, Baraka and Neal were not the only ones using the well-known free jazz musicians to 
promote their own poetics and politics. One of the three most important Black Arts Movement 
poets besides Baraka and Larry Neal, Askia Muhammad T oure, also uses jazz such musicians as 
Sun Ra
5
, Pharoah Sanders, Milford Graves and Coltrane in the poem “Extension” to promote 
his call for freedom and action:
Let the Ritual begin:
Sun Ra, Pharoah, Coltrane, Milford tune up your Afro-horns;
let the Song begin, the Wild Song of the Black Heart:
E X T E N S I O N over the crumbling ghettoes, riding
the deep, ominous night – the Crescent Moon, Evening Star;
the crumbling ghettoes exploding exploding: BAROOM, BAROOM!
#is poem from T oure’s collection Juju connects the free jazz movement with the politics of 
Malcolm X, where again Coltrane is co-opted by the political movement. T oure himself and the 
Black Arts Movement connected the new musical revolution with the new political movement, 
implying a political background to the new music, as T oure said in a recent interview: “#is new 
revolution in consciousness, led by T rane, Sun Ra, Pharaoh Sanders, etc., was complemented by 
the fiery cadences of minister Malcolm X, who functioned as prophet/visionary, a goad & griot 
of a revolutionary, Eastern morality emerging among us…” (Lewis 2004).
#e Black Arts Movement represented for poets like T oure, Baraka, Neal and others a change in 
their thinking as black individuals; the Black Arts Movement represented a way to find the black 
poetic expression, the true black aesthetic. #ese poets reacted, on the basis of the failed Harlem 
Renaissance and the “integration attempts”, against white hegemony. #e new Black Aesthetic 


of the Black Arts Movement, based in New York, used the new innovative experiments and 
approaches of musical improvisation, which led to vernacular, thematic and linguistic experiments, 
mixed with the political message of Malcolm X. In the introduction to Black Music, Baraka also 
hints at a political background for the music of Coltrane or Ornette Coleman, claiming that this 
music cannot be understood without some attention to the attitude which produced it:
We take for granted the social and cultural milieu and philosophy that produced 
Mozart... #e socio-cultural philosophy of the Negro in America (as a continuous 
historical phenomenon) is no less specific and no less important in any intelligent critical 
speculation about the music that came out of it. And again, this is not a plea for narrow 
sociological analysis of jazz, but rather that this music cannot be completely understood 
(in critical terms) without some attention to the attitudes which produced it... A printed 
musical example of an Armstrong solo, or of a #elonious Monk solo, tells us almost 
nothing except the futility of formal musicology when dealing with jazz... Coltrane’s 
cries are not “musical,” but they are music and quite moving music. Ornette Coleman’s 
screams and rants are only musical once one understands the music his emotional attitude 
seeks to create. #is attitude is real, and perhaps the most singularly important aspect of 
his music. (Baraka 1968, 14)
Baraka easily connected the aggressive thoughts of Black Nationalism with the innovative, 
aggressive sound of Coltrane, connecting the spiritual music with the political situation of the 
time.
6
 Baraka connected his own poetics of the “murderous impulse” with Coltrane’s “destruction” 
of western musical forms, since the latter took the famous Tin-Pan-Alley
7
 tune “My Favorite 
#ings” and turned it upside down. It is clear, nevertheless, that Coltrane’s was a purely musical 
context, one used and interpreted by Baraka to promote his own political poetics, as Harris says: 
“Baraka also wants to take weak Western forms, rip them asunder, and create something new out 
of the rubble. He transposes Coltrane’s musical ideas to poetry, using them to turn white poetic 
forms backwards and upside down. #is murderous impulse is behind all the forms of Baraka’s 
aesthetic and art” (Harris 1985, 15).
Won-Gu Kim also argues in his article about Amiri Baraka that Coltrane and Charlie Parker “did 
not base their art solely in the demolition of Western forms” (Won-Gu Kim 2003), but just took 
the “western musical” forms as a starting point for their musical quests. #is conclusion again 
shows the adaptive and interpretative liberty that Baraka took in portraying the John Coltrane 
figure as the new revolutionary ideal. #at Coltrane was preferred over Charlie Parker by Baraka 
is also understandable, since Parker’s music was bebop and was, in comparison with Coltrane’s 
free music, out of time. Another reason could be that Parker was already being used by white 
poets,
8
 the Beats, who saw in Parker the new romantic genius, especially because of his drug 


addiction problems:
9
 “the poets writing about Parker in the fifties were dominantly white writers 
who almost never confronted any of the social issues of race, oppresion, or protest – issues that 
were crucial to the emergence of bebop” (Feinstein 1997, 91).
#at John Coltrane became the leading figure for the movement is also interesting when one 
considers that he, unlike the other jazz musicians, never made any direct political-musical 
statements. Feinstein also wonders why A Love Supreme, with its spiritual message, served as the 
theme for the movement, while Sonny Rollins made even more direct and aggressive political 
statements with his album, #e Freedom Suite: “Sonny Rollins, to whom Coltrane was initially 
compared unfavorably, made a far more directed political statement with his record, Freedom 
Suite (1958)” (ibid., 144).
One of the reasons is that Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus made direct statements regarding 
their political views, and their music was not as revolutionary in musical terms as Coltrane’s. 
Baraka explains in his autobiography why Coltrane made such an impression on him, and why 
he also became the unwilling hero to Baraka and other Black Arts Movement poets:
We heard him blow then, long and strong, trying to find something, as Miles stood at 
the back of the stage and tugged his ear, trying to figure out what the fuck T rane was 
doing. We could feel what he was doing.... #at Five Spot gig with Monk was T rane 
coming into his own. After Monk, he’d play chorus after chorus, taking the music apart 
before our ears, splintering the chords and sounding each note, resounding it, playing it 
backwards and upside down trying to get something else. And we heard our own search 
and travails, our own reaching for a new definition. T rane was our flag.... #ey [the new 
black jazz avant-garde] all could play, and the cry of “Freedom” was not only musical but 
reflected what was going on in the marches and confrontations, on the streets and in the 
restaurants and department stores of the South. (Baraka 1984, 176)
One further reason involves Coltrane’s highly energetic and free music, which was released 
during the 1960s, when the racial tension was at its peak.
10
 Cook and Henderson explain 
that the incredible energy behind Coltrane’s music and his persistence on his spiritual quest 
puts Coltrane very close to Malcolm X: “What Coltrane signifies for black people because 
of the breadth of his vision and the incredible energy behind his spiritual quest, Malcolm X 
signifies in another way – not as musician, but simply and profoundly as black man, as Black 
Experience, and that experience in process of discovering itself, of celebrating itself…” (Cook 
& Henderson 1969, 110).


However, Coltrane denied a direct relationship between his own music and Malcolm X’s militant 
ideas. One thing that connected both of them was their determined pursuit of their own goals, 
as Craig Werner says in his book A Change is Gonna Come: “Coltrane and Malcolm shared a 
determination that could be boiled down to a clear central message: ‘Change the world. Now” 
(Werner 1999, 125).
Camal says that “both men were highly spiritual and both were willing to challenge their 
previous assumptions and accomplishments in a life long quest for the Truth” (Camal 2004). 
He also continues that they “both sometimes chose to express their ideas through a violent 
discourse (Coltrane was often described as an ‘angry tenor’ by white critics) even though they 
both believed in ideals of peace and brotherhood” (Camal 2004). #e idea of violence might 
be true for Malcolm X; however Coltrane’s angry sound did not serve to achieve political 
goals or to express anger. It was merely the style of a saxophone player who technically 
challenged himself in saxophone playing by introducing new techniques. #e connection 
between both leaders, the musical leader and innovator of the time and the political activist, 
has been created and used by the Black Arts Movement to promote their political stance.
 One of the clearest examples of the connection between these leaders is Baraka’s political use of 
the Coltrane figure in his poem “AM/TRAK,” where Baraka equates Coltrane with Malcolm X 
by naming him “the spirit of the 60s”, the “Malcolm X in New Super Bop Fire”:
Trane was the spirit of the 60’s
He was the Malcolm X in New Super Bop Fire
Baaahhhhh
Wheeeeeee….Black Art!!!
For Baraka, Coltrane became in this case an “unsung hero” of his poetics and of the poetics of 
other black nationalist poets, acquiring characteristics of rage and anger. Baraka imposed his own 
ideology onto Coltrane’s music. Feinstein describes Coltrane as a musical embodiment of black 
nationalism and black nationalist poets:
11
 “the outspoken African-American poets of the sixties 
adopted Coltrane’s sound as a musical embodiment of black nationalism in the United States, 
and some of the most explosive poetry from that period is steeped in the music of that time” 
(Feinstein 1997, 116).
#e poem “AM/TRAK” is built from five different contextual levels. In the first part of the poem 
Baraka puts Coltrane on a pedestal, which shows the importance of the legacy of the saxophone 
great: 


Trane, 
Trane,
History Love Scream Oh
Trane, Oh
Trane, Oh
Scream History Love
Trane
#e next three parts of the poem deal with Coltrane’s life – his beginnings in various bands, his 
musical development and his influences like Miles Davis or #elonious Monk, his battles with 
drugs and alcohol, the hostility of critics, and, finally, the triumphant achievement of the great 
John Coltrane Quartet in the fifth part of the poem, where Baraka enumerates the whole quartet 
(with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones), and some of the albums that the band 
recorded (Meditations, Expression, A Love Supreme):
Jimmy Garrison, bass, McCoy Tyner, piano, Captain Marvel Elvin
on drums, the number itself – the precise saying
all of it in it afire aflame talking saying being doing meaning
Meditations
Expressions
A Love Supreme
#e fifth part of the poem is the strongest part in promoting the political stance of Baraka, and 
also in showing how important Coltrane’s sound was for the promotion of the African-American 
legacy, music, art, and freedom:
black blower of the now
#e vectors from all sources – slavery, renaissance
bop charlie parker,
nigger absolute super-sane screams against reality
course through him
AS SOUND!
T owards the end of the last part of the poem Baraka mentions Coltrane’s highly spiritual album 
Meditations, to which Baraka turned while in jail. #e album’s spiritual title and intention 
contradict Baraka’s use of Coltrane’s music since this album supposedly told him what to do:
And yet last night I played Meditations
& it told me what to do
Live, you crazy mother
fucker!
 Live!

 & organize
 yr shit
 as rightly
burning!
However, Baraka constantly used Coltrane’s music to promote his own political ideas, regardless 
of what Coltrane’s primary intentions with his music were. An example of such imposing of ideas 
is Baraka’s poem “I Love Music” from 1987, where Baraka takes the compositions which Coltrane 
played, “Like Sonny,” “My Favorite #ings” and “Giant Steps,” and attaches his marxistic nihilist 
ideas to them:
I want to talk to you 
my favorite things 
like sonny 
giant steps, life itself, fire can be, heart explosion, soul explosion, brain explo 
sion. can be. can be. can be. aggeeewheeuheeaggeeee. aggrrr rrruuuaggg.
On the other hand, Baraka’s interpretation of Coltrane’s music is understandable, since the 
majority  of Coltrane’s later albums contains fierce and almost “aggressive,” in terms of musical 
experimentation, saxophone playing by Coltrane. Feinstein describes Coltrane in the hands of 
Baraka as a martyr: “an everpresent inspiration to whom Baraka turns while in jail, and, by 
implication, throughout his life” (Feinstein 1997, 121).
An example of Baraka’s lifetime inspiration of Coltrane occurs in one of his latest poems “Wise 4,” 
where Coltrane is again connected with the revolution through the metaphor of black and red fire:
in those crazy dreams I called myself
Coltrane
bathed in a black and red fire…
Coltrane followed revolutionary events; he even played eight benefit concerts in support of King. 
He also recorded and wrote tunes inspired by the struggle of Martin Luther King –  “Reverend 
King,” “Backs against the Wall,” and his album Cosmic Music was dedicated to King. It is said 
that Coltrane even wrote the tune “Alabama” in response to the bombing in Birmingham. His 
saxophone lines are supposedly patterned according to Martin Luther King’s funeral speech. #e 
whole tune reflects the movement of King’s speech, since Elvin Jones’s drumming rises to crescendo 
of rage, which represents the point where King transforms his mourning into a statement of 
renewed determination to struggle against racism. Jones wanted this drumming crescendo to 
signify the rising of the civil rights movement. Baraka describes the tune “Alabama” in the liner 
notes of the album Coltrane Live at Birdland as following: “a slow delicate introspective sadness, 
almost hopelessness, except for Elvin, rising in the background like something out of nature...
a fattening thunder, storm clouds or jungle war clouds. #e whole is a frightening emotional 
portrait of some place, in these musicians’ feelings” (Jones 1963).

However, this can again be just propaganda on the part of poets like Baraka to promote the 
political agenda of the time, since Coltrane never described himself as a political activist. His 
musical pursuit was purely personal, although the Black Arts Movement proclaimed him as its 
musical and influential hero. Feinstein questions, therefore, even the overly politicized message 
that is connected with Coltrane’s tune “Alabama”: “According to various writers, none of whom 
cites primary sources, Coltrane incorporated not only his own emotional response but the 
rhythms in King’s eulogy as well. Although this song might be considered an overt political 
gesture, Coltrane throughout his career made no direct statement about his association with the 
Civil Rights Movement” (Feinstein 1997, 116).
During the recording session for the tune “Alabama,” Coltrane said that “the music it 
represents musically, something that I saw down there translated into music from inside me.” 
Coltrane again denied the connection between politics and his own music. However, Camal 
offers an argument that “the very nature of the music and the timing of its recording make it 
impossible not to link it to the events taking place in Alabama, around the South and in the 
nation’s capital that year” (Camal 2004). Camal’s argument does not stand on solid ground, 
especially if we consider the interview that Coltrane gave to Frank Kofsky, the author of Black 
Nationalism and the Revolution in Music, where Coltrane was compared with Malcolm X. 
Coltrane, whom Kofsky saw as a god and, on the other hand, as a stereotypical black musician 
supporting the movement around Malcolm X, again refused any connection with Malcolm 
X’s ideas and “side-stepped many of the loaded questions in an effort to emphasize his primary 
concern – the creative act” (Feinstein 1997, 119):
Kofsky: Some musicians have said that there’s a relationship between some of Malcolm’s 
ideas and the music, especially the new music. Do you think there’s anything in that?
Coltrane: Well, I think that music, being an expression of the human heart, or of the 
human being itself, does express just what is happening. I feel it expresses the whole thing 
– the whole of human experience at the particular time that it is being expressed. (Kofsky 
1970, 225)
Still, Coltrane’s aesthetic revolution was linked to the revolutionary explosion in the Northern 
cities of the USA. Coltrane attracted and played before audiences of the most politically advanced 
blacks. King and the other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were soon overpowered by 
the revolution of the new generation of leaders such as Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, 
which began to realize the radical movement. For Baraka and for many of his contemporary 
African American nationalist poets, Coltrane “articulated the passion of a decade remembered 
for extreme expressions of and attacks against racism” (Feinstein 1997, 121). Even though 
Coltrane rejected any connection with Malcolm X, what the Black Nationalist poets saw in 
Coltrane was the new musical code and the new aggressive sound of the music. #ey did not 
respond to what he said in his interviews; they responded to his music and adapted it for their 
own purposes. 

Jayne Cortez’s poem “How Long has T rane Been Gone” is another poem where the poet equates 
Coltrane with Malcolm X, with the same aggression Baraka uses in his poetics – “Rip those dead 
white people off your walls Black people”:
And how many more Tranes will go 
before you understand your life 
John Coltrane had the whole of 
life wrapped up in B flat 
John Coltrane like Malcolm 
true image of black masculinity 
…
John Coltrane 
Rip those dead white people off your walls Black people 
your walls Black people 
black people whose walls  
should be a hall 
A Black Hall of Fame 
so our children will know  
will know & be proud 
Proud to say I’m from Parker City, Coltrane City, 
Ornette City, 
Pharoah City living on Holiday street next to James Brown 
Park in 
the state of Malcolm
Coltrane is in this poem the “true image of black masculinity,” like Malcolm X, and is therefore 
also connected with the poets’ message to “Rip those dead white people off your walls Black 
people”. An important part of the poem to promote Malcolm’s message are also the allusions to jazz 
musicians Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman and Pharoah Sanders, next to John Coltrane. Cortez 
metaphorically says that all these musicians are together with Coltrane part of Malcolm X’s state. 
 One of the leading Black Arts Movement poets, who also used the figure of John Coltrane in the 
political context, was Sonia Sanchez, who dedicated one of her most famous poems to Coltrane 
– “a/coltrane/poem”:
a lovesupremealovesupremealovesupreme for our blk
people.
BRING IN THE WITE/MOTHA/fuckas
ALL THE MILLIONAIRES/BANKERS/ol

…
BRING IN THE WITE/LIBERALS ON THE SOLO
SOUND OF YO/FIGHT IS MY FIGHT
    SAXOPHONE
     TORTURE
THEM FIRST AS THEY HAVE 
    TORTURED US WITH
PROMISES…
#is poem ends her collection We a BaddDDD People, which with its jazzy rhythms of Coltrane’s 
tunes “Brother John” and “My Favorite #ings,” carries the political message to burn capitalist 
millionaires and promise-breaking liberals, so that African Americans might rise and take their 
deserved position. Sanchez’s use of jazz improvisation, with words spread all over the page, 
containing a political message also occurs in her poem “on seeing pharoah sanders blowing,” 
from her first collection Homecoming, where she criticizes the “white whore america”. #e same 
political message can be found throughout her early poetry, with high peaks in poems like 
“malcolm” – “fuck you white man. we have been curled too long. nothin is sacred now. not your 
white faces nor any land that separates until some voices squat with spasms.”
#e poem “a/coltrane/poem” also contains an element from Coltrane’s playing, transformed into 
the political and poetic context: his screeching saxophone playing of free jazz. Feinstein talks in 
this case about the angry expression of the Black Arts Movement to vent their rage and anger 
against the white America: “But in the Coltrane poetry, the “scream” is most often not for “the 
time”; it is, instead, the angry expression of African-American demands for justice, for equality 
of opportunity…#e description of Coltrane’s sound as a scream became, in many cases, a way 
to vent outrage at the white establishment…” (Feinstein 1997, 123).
#e aesthetic scream of Coltrane’s jazz was used in a way to express outrage against the white 
establishment, as Feinstein puts it. Malcolm X was connected with John Coltrane as a central 
force of the movement. Larry Neal, one of the leaders of the Black Arts Movement, said that 
Malcolm X was like jazz in reminding poets of the music of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane 
– a music that was a central force in the emerging ethos of the Black Arts Movement.
Sonia Sanchez uses this scream in a paradoxical connection with the spiritual “A Love Supreme.” 
#is album carries Coltrane’s positive message of peace; however the “aggressive” playing of 
Coltrane evoked in Sanchez the idea of revolution and uprising against the white community, 
Coltrane’s music is seen as “a love supreme” for the black people, while Sanchez found a phonetic 
equivalent to Coltrane’s aggressive saxophone lines:
yrs befo u blew away our passsst
and showed us our futureeeeee
schreech screeech screeeeech screeech
a/love/supreme, alovesupreme a lovesupreme.

 A LOVE SUPREME
ScrEEEccCHHHHHH screeeeEEECHHHHHHH
SCReeeEEECHHHHHHH SCREEEECCCCHHHH
SCREEEEEEEECCCHHHHHHHHHHHH
a lovesupremealovesupremealovesupreme for our blk
people.
 Another poet who uses the “idea of the scream” to show her anger is Carolyn Rodgers. Her poem 
“Me, in Kulu Se & Karma” discusses her freedom using the screaming music and playing of 
tenor saxophone players Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane:
sweeet sweeeeeet and its
me in the sky moving that way going freee where pha
raoh and trane playing in my guts and its me and my
ears forgetting how to listen and just feeling oh
yeam me I am screammmmmmmmming into the box and the box
is screammmmmmmming back, is slow motion moving sound…
#e poem alludes to Coltrane’s album Kulu Se Mama, which marked Coltrane’s departure into 
more adventurous free form improvisation, while it also featured Pharoah Sanders on tenor 
saxophone, besides Coltrane’s classic quartet. Rodgers supports her cry for freedom with another 
album from the period, Pharoah Sanders’ Karma. Rodgers blended both albums in the title of 
the poem, since both albums carry a spiritual message with free jazz playing. Karma was Sanders’ 
third recording as a leader and can be seen as a kind of a sequel to Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, 
especially if we consider the 32-minute long composition “#e Creator Has A Master Plan.”
 According to Feinstein, the most representative political poem from this period, also making use 
of Coltrane’s scream, is Haki Madhubuti’s Don’t Cry, Scream “for it reflects the demands made by 
many African-American poems from the sixties” (Feinstein 1997, 127):
naw brother,
i didn’t cry,
i just -
Scream-eeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ed          sing loud
SCREAM-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-ED       & high with
we-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ee       feeling
WE-EEEEEEeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEE         letting
WE-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE         yr/voice
WHERE YOU DONE GONE, BROTHER?      Break

Madhubuti, like Sanchez, uses the scream through the phonetic equivalent of Coltrane’s playing, 
from his album Ascension, to promote the political revolutionary ideas.
 Poets like Baraka, Sanchez, Madhubuti, Neal and other Black Arts Movement poets in the 
1960s used the “aggressive sound” of Coltrane and can be even seen as having incorrectly 
interpreted his music. #ey used his music only to break through with their own political 
ideas. Coltrane’s music was in this sense an instrument for the ideas of the Black Arts 
Movement in connection with the black nationalists. Since Coltrane was one of the more 
spiritual jazz musicians in the history of jazz, the poetry of the Black Arts Movement did not 
reflect the true nature of Coltrane’s music. Coltrane, as a black musician and a black person, 
did of course support the ideas of equality, but still he was not trying to mix his musical 
message with the ideas of Black Nationalism. #is makes a certain sense and coincides with 
the poem that Coltrane wrote for the album A Love Supreme, which reflects Coltrane’s belief 
in God and his belief in world peace:
I will do all I can to be worthy of #ee o Lord
It all has to do with it.
#ank you God.
Peace.
#ere is none other.
God is. It is so beautiful.
#ank you God. God is all.
#e album A Love Supreme and others of Coltrane’s spiritual albums like Om, Ascension 
or Meditations influenced on the one side the musical poets, like William Matthews, Jean 
Valentine, George Economou, Sascha Feinstein, Michael Stillman, and especially Michael 
S. Harper;
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 while on the other side, the political Coltrane poetry, especially the Black Arts 
Movement poets, saw in Coltrane an opportunity to express their political ideas. #e musical 
type of Coltrane poetry is presently alive as ever in the world of poetry, since Coltrane and 
his music continue to be an inspiration for poets around the globe. #e political Coltrane 
poetry had its highlights in late 60s, while nowadays we can only see its traces in poetry which 
tries to awake and affirm the African American legacy and history, as we can see in the poem 
“Dear John Coltrane” by A.B. Spellman, where the poet remembers his “flight for freedom”, 
combined with Coltrane’s slow blues:
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   later, different station, cold room dimming
   it’s you, john, trane’s slow blues
   now it’s your line that opens, & opens
   & opens, & i’m flying that way again
   same sky, different moon, this midnight
   globe that toned those now lost blue rooms
   where things like jazz float the mind
   this motion the still & airless propulsion
   i know as inner flight, this view
   the one i cannot see with my eyes
   open. i hear the beginning approach, &
   i know the line i traveled was a horizon
   the circle of the world, another freedom
   flight to another starting place...
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