HIGH POINT, N.C. (WGHP) — In every profession, there are a few people who when you mention their name, people can’t help but smile. John Coltrane is one of those who makes jazz music.
“He has accomplished more professionally in … just 20 years than anyone I can think of,” said Wally West, a professional saxophonist who ran the John Coltrane Workshop in High Point for 20 years.
Coltrane paved the way for West when he discovered Coltrane’s music as an aspiring musician in seventh grade.
“The growth that Coltrane achieved as a musician… has not been matched by anyone since,” West said. “It seems like he will never be able to quench his thirst for moving music forward. It’s just more than music. He used music to communicate who he was.
In his final years, Coltrane was a man of faith.
“There was a period around 1957 when he started to really feel close to God and was trying to overcome some personal demons, and that culminated with ‘A Love Supreme,’” West said, referring to Coltrane’s legendary album, released in January. . 1965, just two and a half years before his death at the age of 40.
It all started on Underhill Street in High Point.
“This is the root of his music,” said High Point historian and documentarian Phyllis Bridges. “I knew about his music, but I didn’t know where he lived as a child. And of course it was a shock, I… I’m sure a lot of people in High Point don’t know that John Coltrane lived here.”
Coltrane was born in the town of Hamlet in Richmond County, North Carolina, about 85 miles south of High Point, but his mother moved with him to High Point to live with her father, the Rev. William Wilson Blair.
“It was occupied until 2018,” Coralle Cowan said as we entered the house. Cowan is part of Preservation High Point, an organization that is working to restore the home.
“Reverend Blair was a very prominent minister,” Cowan said.
As a minister’s home during the difficult times of the Great Depression, Blair House was a place where many turned for help.
“There’s a story about Mrs. Blair, the Reverend’s wife… cooking in the kitchen and feeding people during the Great Depression,” Cowan said.
Cowan notes that it is clear that there is still a significant amount of work to be done.
“A lot of issues are just neglected,” Cowan said.
Bridges knows how long it may be before the house opens to visitors.
“I thought, ‘I have to say this.’ This is another part of High Point’s rich African-American history that needs to be told,” Bridges said.
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And West couldn’t agree more.
“He spent his entire life striving for excellence, but his candle went out too soon,” West said.
See what Coltrane’s house looks like today in this edition of The Buckley Report.