Saving the John Coltrane House in Philadelphia
This is a very cool article about Coltrane’s house in North Philly, where he lived from 1952 to ’58 when he moved to New York City. It’s gratifying to see the street named in his honor and the house declared a landmark. I lived in Philly from 1966 to ’70 and these photos remind me of what a three-story city Philadelphia was. I’m sure that’s no longer the case.
-Michael Cuscuna
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John Coltrane’s Neighborhood: Philadelphia as Post-War Jazz Capital
All About Jazz is hosting a series of articles about the Philadelphia where John Coltrane spent his formative years. And not just Coltrane: the Heath Brothers, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Smith, Philly Joe Jones, Benny Golson, Lee Morgan and Reggie Workman, among many others. In this article, Rob Armstrong revisits the Philadelphia local culture that, as Odean Pope asserts, harbored the most important US jazz scene between World War II and the mid 1960s.
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Pat Martino: Back on Top of his Game
This Mainline Media News site features a story about the travails of Philadelphia’s own Pat Martino and retells the story of his 1980 brain surgery which left him with very little of his musical or personal memory. Pat and I had been neighbors in Philly in 1967 and became close friends. I was among the few people that he recognized during recovery, so he came to spend some time with me in New York. It was odd to speak of shared times, mutual friends and famous pieces of music and get so little recognition from a familiar face. Little by little, enough came back and, musically, Pat was back at the top of his game in no time.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Christian McBride: bass roots in Philly
An extended interview with bassist Christian McBride: his roots in Philadelphia, the hot house for so many jazz greats, and the musical cross pollination that produced a bassist who seems to be in so many places that count.
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The Early Years of Jimmy Heath
We’ve been relating in the Gazette the resurgent interest in John Coltrane’s formative years in Philadelphia. Another distnguished musical citizen of that City was saxoophonist and composer Jimmy Heath. In this 2009 JazzWax interview, Marc Myers adroitly elicits Jimmy Heath’s impressions of the jazz world in the late 1940s — especially his first foray into Dizzy Gillespie’s world, from the eyes of youth — albeit highly talented youth.
-Nick Moy
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John Coltrane Slept Here: Preserving His Home in Philadelphia
This All About Jazz column involves the preservation of the house in which John Coltrane lived from 1952 to ’58 in Philadelphia, where he was raised. Philly is only 90 minutes from New York City, but it seems worlds away. It’s a more provincial, insular community than Manhattan, which may be why all the great jazz musicians that it generated, including Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, Ray Bryant, the Heath brothers and dozens more left Philly to make their mark on the world.
-Michael Cuscuna
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