Nobody really knows and

"Alabama"

John Coltrane, tenor sax
McCoy Tyner, piano
Jimmy Garrison, bass
Elvin Jones, drums
1963

I've said that Trane played Spiritual music. I've said that a lot actually. I don't know that it really gets it though.

Any accomplished improviser is a skilled editor. There isn't just a single musical idea flowing through the mind at a given time, there are thousands. The one that gets the call has to be executed with proficiency in real time. I mean real time. Elvin Jones circular time real time.

How does that work? Nobody knows. Left brain-right brain stuff, channeling a Higher Power, blind luck, practice, knowledge, discipline, a combination of all that and more asides? Nobody really knows and nobody really ever will. Maybe in that way it is Spiritual. But one man's faith in something may be evidence of his lack of faith in something else. Trane did his best playing, his real playing, his cry to the sky playing after he kicked the junk. He credited that to his Faith, an epiphany. He gained Faith. The substances can open a door and shut it too. Most that come out alive have trouble finding the door and when they find it they fumble for they keys in the dark. At least for a while. Not Trane. So, maybe he did have an epiphany. Nobody knows, there is no scientific proof in these matters. There is the musical evidence. Nobody gets by unscathed you know? And neither did Trane, liver cancer at 41. Say what you got to say, that's the real deal. Edit Edit Edit is what they tell you and there's truth in it. You can call it Faith, you can call it Spiritual and that's another form of editing because it opens a door to a broader mystery. Listen.