{"id":292175,"date":"2026-09-23T10:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T10:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/292175\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T10:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T10:20:10","slug":"philly-is-the-proving-ground-of-john-coltranes-100th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/292175\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly is the proving ground of John Coltrane\u2019s 100th"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preserving Coltrane\u2019s legacy in the house of his spiritual rebirth
\n\"KathleenKathleen Hennessy, the wife on John Coltrane\u2019s son Ravi, is working on the restoration of the John Coltrane house in Philadelphia. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

In 1952, with money from the GI Bill, Coltrane bought a house on North 33rd Street. After years of tangled title and court proceedings, the dilapidated house is now owned by an organization founded by Coltrane\u2019s son, Ravi, which has begun stabilizing the structure for renovations as a community cultural asset.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds kind of boring but it\u2019s actually really exciting,\u201d said Kathleen Hennessy, Ravi Coltrane\u2019s wife. It\u2019s very serious structural work that\u2019s necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Together, Hennessy and her husband have nearly completed the restoration of the Long Island house where Coltrane lived at the end of his life. Coltrane\u2019s childhood home in North Carolina is also being restored by the High Point Preservation Society.<\/p>\n

\"KathleenKathleen Hennessy, the wife on John Coltrane\u2019s son Ravi, stands in a back bedroom on the second floor of the John Coltrane house in Philadelphia. Hennessy is working on the restoration of the John Coltrane house in Philadelphia. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

Here in Philadelphia, the front fa\u00e7ade of the 33rd Street house has been reconstructed and the structure\u2019s back wall is being rebuilt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to really help stabilize the house. Whether we\u2019re doing the Long Island home or here, that\u2019s the first thing that we want to do: stabilize the building,\u201d Hennessy said.<\/p>\n

On the rear of the Philadelphia rowhome\u2019s second floor is a small bedroom with cracked plaster walls and peeling paint. The humble space carries an outsized importance in jazz history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the room where he came to free himself of drug addiction,\u201d said Anthony Tidd, chief creative catalyst with Ars Nova Workshop. \u201cHe locked himself in this room and basically quit his habit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AnthonyArs Nova Workshop\u2019s Anthony Tidd takes in the view of East Fairmount Park from the second floor of the John Coltrane House on 33rd Street. Tidd has been working on programming to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Coltrane\u2019s birth. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

Coltrane had been struggling with heroin and alcohol, which had gotten him fired from the Miles Davis band. He later said that the sobriety he achieved here in 1957 led him to a spiritual awakening and a period of intense creativity.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, in 1960, he released the album \u201cGiant Steps.\u201d It is considered one of the most influential jazz albums of all time. In 1964, he composed \u201cLove Supreme,\u201d which his wife Alice<\/a> described as \u201clike Moses coming down from the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if you like jazz or not like jazz, most people are very inspired by the idea of transcendence, of searching, of stretching towards good,\u201d Hennessy said. \u201cHe says very specifically: \u2018I want to be a force for good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA back bedroom on the second floor of the John Coltrane house in Philadelphia is where Coltrane kicked his drug habit and came out a changed man. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

Mark Christman, the founder of Ars Nova Workshop, said the best way to understand Coltrane is to listen to his music with patience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an artistic language that\u2019s formed and forged within segregation, within constraint, within migration and labor and aspiration. Coltrane\u2019s life exemplifies this,\u201d he said. \u201cUnderstanding this one particular artist\u2019s growth can help us understand each other a little bit more intimately and honestly. Spending time with this music can be part of a kind of healing that this country needs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Preserving Coltrane\u2019s legacy in the house of his spiritual rebirth Kathleen Hennessy, the wife on John Coltrane\u2019s son…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7419,7420,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-292175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-coltrane","tag-jazz","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}