Uploaded May 2015 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago

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"I want to be the force which is truly for good."
- John Coltrane in 1966, as told Frank Kofsky

One afternoon in November 1966, Frank Kofsky took the train out to Long Island. He was about to spend the day with John Coltrane. Kofsky brought his tape recorder and what we get to hear is the conversation the two men had as they drove through town and made a few stops along the way.

Coltrane had moved to Huntington, New York with his wife Alice and their children in 1964. They lived in a modest house on a quiet, tree-lined street. It was a home to raise a family. Coltrane had just turned 40. He would die from liver cancer less than a year later.

During this episode Coltrane talks about moving to the country, setting up to practice, connecting with the sound of an instrument, Malcolm X, music as means of expressing that state of society, and how he wanted to change the world.

More Choice Coltrane
"I keep a horn on the piano and I have a horn in my bedroom."
"Music, being expression of the human heart or the human being itself, does express just what is happening."
"In any situation that we find in our lives, when there’s something we feel should be better, we must exert effort to try and make it better."

Here the full interview: PacificaRadioArchives.org

Get more Coltrane on our website including Coltrane the saint,
more quotes from this one of Coltrane's final interviews, his battles with Miles Davis, and the super quartet behind Coltrane's "A Love Supreme"

blankonblank.org/interviews/john-coltrane-rare-interview-jazz-saxophone-spirituality

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Executive Producer: David Gerlach
Animator: Patrick Smith
Audio Producer: Amy Drozdowska

Music You Heard
John Coltrane
@ 0:07 “In a Sentimental Mood”
@ 2:27 “My Favorite Things”

APM MUSIC
@ 0:32 Simon Thorpe (PRS), John Donaldson (BMI)
“Break Out”
@ 3:10
Jean Gobinet (SACEM)
“I Was Born Here”
@ 3:35 Colin Towns (PRS)
“Downcast”
@ 4:00 Michele Generale (SIAE), Femi Olasehinde (PRS), Paolo Porta (SIAE)
“Run Time”
search.apmmusic.com

Photos
Dutch National Archives
Impulse Records / Charles Stewart

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