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SAINT JOHN COLTRANE AOC
Recent Articles Continued...

"HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS!"

On tour in Japan, John Coltrane was once asked what he would be doing in 10 years' time. He confided, "I would like to be a saint."
  Apart from a small midweek service, the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church at 351 Divisadero Street is a quiet place during the week. The view from the street reveals a bruised old Hammond organ resting behind one of the windows, while a large poster of John Coltrane is propped against the other. Inside, the church is a small rectangular room with only six pews and a high ceiling with two small skylights and strip-lighting. One side of the church is covered in bold primary-coloured murals and, elsewhere, there are Reverend Mark Duke's Byzantinesque portraits of a robed John Coltrane. Above the altar is a painting of Jesus Christ with dreadlocks and black skin, and on top of the piano lies a shakere and a row of tambourines. Every Sunday the divine liturgy conducted by the church's founder, The Most Reverend Bishop Franzo King, is an exercise in what he calls "sound praise." "There are many ways to praise the Lord and we are praising God with sound, offering the music up to the Lord. The spirit of God is in the sound,' he explains.

  King saw John Coltrane perform in 1967 and describes it as "a baptism in sound"; he took up the saxophone soon afterwards, going on to play at the Berkeley jazz festival with Sonny Simmons, and perform regularly at Bop City. But he has never considered himself a professional musician: "I played and got paid, but it was always about prayer and meditation to me. You can't hire me to do God's work. In 1969, King started the "One Mind Temple Evolutionary Transitional Body of Christ," using Coltrane's music as the main vehicle for religious praise. In 1982, the church became an official part of the African Orthodox Church, itself an arm of the Eastern Catholic Church, when, King was ordained as a bishop.

Val Wilmer; James Maycock

  Each Sunday the church throngs with a multiracial audience. The musicians launch into the John Coltrane composition Africa without a word being said. The first hour and a half is almost entirely musical as the musicians tackle Acknowledgment form "A Love Supreme" while the congregation chant the mantra of the album's title. Reverend King begins another hypnotic chant: "May there be peace and love and perfection throughout all creation, Oh God." John Coltrane's music and prayers, including the one he wrote on the back cover of A Love Supreme, are intertwined around every aspect of the liturgy. Another Coltrane piece, Spiritual, accompanies the Lord's Prayer. Lonnie's Lament is next as the bishop points authoritatively at certain musicians to begin a solo. He urges them on saying, "the praying's in the playing," as they begin to perspire as much as the Henri Dauman photograph of a sweating Coltrane which hangs beside them. The informality of the service could surprise some Europeans. As a couple of four-year-old, doe-eyed children fight over the possession of one of the tambourines, only to find their hands too small to play it, the rest of the audience is swaying to the rhythm of the music, clapping their hands or waving a tambourine.
  As the division between the congregation and the bishop, choir and musicians completely breaks down, the service takes on an organic, improvisational quality. Audience members stand and begin to play flute or saxophone, seemingly at random. During the reading of the lesson a member of the congregation yells exuberantly, "Say that again!" The bishop graciously repeats the sentence. Sister Mary Deborah is on minute directing the stunning gospel voices of the choir which includes Mother Marina, the bishop's wife, and the next minute is in the audience responding to the bishop's sentiments with either "praise God", "Jesus" or, once, "exodus". But the reverential tone is spike with many humorous asides. During his sermon, the bishop declared, "everybody has the blues" before quickly adding, "that doesn't mean we can all play the blues!" A small child sitting on the lap of the drummer has been tapping on the drums throughout his address. The bishop, grinning kindly asks him to "cool it, man". At the end of the four hour service the doors are symbolically flung open, letting in the bright sunshine and the sounds and smells of the busy street outside.
  Visitors to the John Coltrane Orthodox Church invariably receive a warm welcome. They can also look forward to the day when King manages to canonize his next musician. "When I started using John Coltrane as a vehicle for worship, some were concerned I was going astray," he confides. "Now they've seen what we're doing, there's a lot of support for us. The next campaign is for Duke Ellington. His and John Coltrane's life experiences were not the same, but he opened up his to the spiritual by holding masses at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. We're continuing what he helped start."

The Church of Saint John's
Saint John Will-I-Am Coltrane
Message from Bishop King
Weekly Bulletin