Live it, learn it, love it, support it: JAZZ APPRECIATION MONTH

About the Jazz Appreciation Month Poster:

In 2014, the National Museum of American History will celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) with the theme Jazz Alchemy: A Love Supreme, to pay tribute to John Coltrane and the 50th anniversary of his composition “A Love Supreme.”

Music inspires personal meaning and sometimes is a catalyst for transformation. A Love Supreme is John Coltrane’s musical hymn about the transformation that faith and music sparked in his life.

Recorded in December of 1964, A Love Supreme is Coltrane’s musical declaration of spirituality and fatih in a loving God who supported him through drug addiction and other human failures. While drug, alcohol dependence, and other life challenges may have temporarily stolen Coltrane’s peace, it did not capture Coltrane’s creative genius. Instead Coltrane transmuted human suffering into a hymn –composing a four part suite that is legendary in the jazz canon for a “unique chemistry” that many performers and hearers acknowledge can be felt but rarely put into words. Coltrane immersed himself in the composition, recording the chant “A love supreme,” writing the liner notes, and composing a poem to accompany the fourth movement, Psalm.

The original A Love Supreme music score will be on exhibition in “American Stories” at the museum from March 14 through June 17, 2014. A specially created image of Coltrane by artist Joseph Holston graces the JAM poster.