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  • (“In a Sentimental Moodby John Coltrane)

  • - Do you live far outside of

  • wherever we are now?

  • - Well I guess I’m about four or five miles

  • down the road (laughs).

  • - [Frank] You really sound like Farmer John (laughs).

  • - Yeah man, when I come up here, I have to do all

  • to get everything I want to get...

  • You know, I got to the store and do all that

  • because I don’t want to come back up here.

  • (jazz music)

  • - [Frank] Where do you play at home?

  • - [John] Anywhere.

  • There’s a room over the garage out there

  • that I’m getting fixed now to

  • I think it’s going to be my practice room.

  • You know sometimes you build a room

  • and it ends up you can still go in the toilet,

  • so I don’t know, I hope I like it but

  • I keep a horn on the piano and I have a horn in my bedroom

  • the flute’s usually back there

  • because when I go down tired, I lay down and practice and...

  • - About how many hours a day do you play, would you say?

  • - Not too much at this time.

  • I find that it’s only when something

  • is trying to come through

  • you know that I really practice

  • and then it’s just,

  • I don’t know how many hours,

  • it’s just all day.

  • (saxophone music)

  • I did a foolish thing,

  • I got dissatisfied with my mouth piece (laughs).

  • I had some work done on this thing

  • and instead of making it better, it ruined it.

  • It really discouraged me, you know, a little bit

  • because they were certain aspects of that playing

  • that certain fast thing that I was reaching for

  • that I couldn’t push because I had damaged this thing

  • so I just had to curtail it (laughs).

  • But at that moment, it was so vivid in my mind,

  • the difference in what I was getting on the horn,

  • as soon as I put that horn in my mouth,

  • I could hear it.

  • I could feel it and I just stopped,

  • I just went into other things.

  • In fact, soprano’s one of the reasons I started (laughs)

  • getting dissatisfied with that tenor mouthpiece, see?

  • Because the sound of that soprano

  • was actually so much closer to me in my ear.

  • I didn’t want to admit this damn thing

  • because I said well the tenor’s my horn,

  • this is my baby but the soprano,

  • there’s still something there,

  • just the voice of it that I can’t…

  • It’s just really beautiful.

  • I really like it.

  • (“My Favorite Thingsby John Coltrane)

  • - [Frank] The people I was staying with have a friend,

  • a young lady,

  • and she was downtown at one Malcolm X’s speeches

  • and, lo and behold, who should plop down

  • in the seat next to her but John Coltrane (laughs).

  • - [John] (laughs) Yeah.

  • - [Frank] Were you impressed with him?

  • - [John] Definitely, definitely.

  • I felt I had to see the man.

  • I was quite impressed.

  • - [Frank] Some musicians have said there’s a relationship

  • between some of Malcolm’s ideas and the music.

  • - [John] Well, I think that music,

  • being expression of the human heart

  • or the human being itself,

  • does express just what is happening.

  • The whole of human experience

  • at that particular time is being expressed.

  • (horn music)

  • 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.

  • So it’s the same socially, musically, politically,

  • in any department of your life.

  • I think music is an instrument.

  • It can create the initial thought pattern

  • that can create a change, you see,

  • in the thinking of the people.

  • (saxophone music)

  • I want to be a force for good.

  • I mean I want to be a force for real good.

  • In other words, I know that there are bad forces.

  • I know that there are forces out here

  • that bring suffering to others

  • and misery to the world,

  • but I want to be the opposite force.

  • I want to be the force which is truly for good.

  • (saxophone music)

  • - [Frank] What were you looking for John,

  • do you want some cigarettes or…?

  • - [John] No, I’m just sitting up because my back is wet

  • and I just need to get off the chair.

  • - [Frank] I don’t have any more of my prepared questions

  • to ask you, or my improvised questions (laughs) to ask you.

  • I don’t know when I’ll ever get the chance

  • to sit you down with a tape recorder again (laughs).

  • Do you have anything else to get on here?

  • - [John] I think you man, well you just about covered it,

  • I believe

  • just about covered it.

  • (jazz music)

  • Subtitles by the Amara.org community

(“In a Sentimental Moodby John Coltrane)

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