A retired member of Betsy’s church in Newburyport (1st religious society UU) is a well known music historian and author who once hosted an evening service held monthly with a jazz ensemble that played music by any one of several composers, the most memorable being the John Coltrane concert.

I learned a lot about Coltrane that night, especially how much of a philosopher he was. Every time the speaker was mentioning a difficult thought to explain he would hold up both hands and say something like:”John Coltrane once said…”bla bla bla” which was almost amazing in the simplicity of words to say something very deeply that concerned the subject. And then the group would play a song by Coltrane that told the story in a most wonderful and simple musical statement to punctuate the thought.

The presenter was Mr. Tom Stites , retired editor for the NY Times, writer for Jazz Magazine (he actually started that mag!) and a litany of other well-known rags.

the band was led by a quite famous Jazz Sax player from Newburyport whose name has slipped my mind temporarily. That night he had some real ringers join him mostly jazz names that spent a lot of time touring European jazz clubs…

It was an amazing evening. I streamed the performance and am trying to obtain a link to allow watching it.

de K1srr

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