The Gospel according to John - Omega is the Alpha
John Coltrane – The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording – Omega is the Alpha
Coltrane Home talk Oct 4 2026
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To begin with, I want to say that I am greatly honored and humbled to be asked to give some of my perspectives on this occasion celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great John Coltrane; A great deal has already been said of this giant this year as we acknowledge his centenary year so rather than a kind of overview I will give my own particular take here focusing on the very last recorded notes of John Coltrane which I am titling “Omega is the Alpha” - words taken both from scripture, appropriate for our church setting today, and from an Albert Ayler tune title. And as I begin please know that in the spirit of a late Trane solo my remarks will not be brief so thank you for your open ears and hearts as I blow a little bit before Sam Dillon and the band blow.
As a tenor saxophonist myself, the impact of this man and his work has been a major “force for good” in my life since my senior year in high school when the iconic photographic image of Trane from the cover of “A Love Supreme” taken by photographer Chuck Stewart in 1964 went up on my bedroom wall. But there is an even more direct point of connection for me growing up in Los Angeles in the 1970’s where Alice Coltrane would come down from her ashram in the hills of Malibu annually to hold an event called “The Coltrane Family Concerts” at Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA – There I got to experience the sublime and powerful sounds of Coltrane music live for the first time as Turiyasangitananda performed with her family including children Michelle, Ravi, Oran and John Jr. Incredibly through my friendship with drummer Gerry Gibbs whose father Terry Gibbs was the one who first introduced John and Alice, I got to go backstage and briefly meet Alice Coltrane whose cosmic vibration pulsed through the room, dressed in her iconic orange attire. I had experienced a little of the Coltrane magic up close, and it was a transformative experience for me.
In attempting to find one focal point, one perspective, one tiny foothold on the depth and breadth of John Coltrane’s artistic and spiritual life I have made the decision today to begin at the end - his final recorded performance – “The Olatunji Concerts” which took place April 23, 1967 at the Babatunde Olatundji Center for African Culture located at 43 East125th St in Harlem. The concert (the first set anyway) was recorded and released years after the performance in September of 2001. It is not Coltrane’s most famous or widely heard recording (in fact, it is one that I have come to pretty recently), and in truth in may not be his most complete artistic statement on record either. But one thing is undeniable – it is John Coltrane’s last recorded statement and for that alone, it bears close attention.
The question is ---- in considering the whole scope of the life and work of John Coltrane,
Why start at the end?
In teaching Jazz History, we most often start at the beginning – That would be the legacy of West African musical performance practices as they were retained in various forms in this country, the roots music of blues, work songs, sacred music, the creativity and adaptations of New Orleans musicians around the turn of the century. You know ---- the beginning. With individual artists we emphasize their upbringing, their first musical experiences, their first recordings – Charlie Parker on Jay McShann’s “Hootie Blues”…. – for John Coltrane this would be early recordings on the alto sax in 1946, still in the Navy.
So why start at the ending with John Coltrane today……?
In 2021, in one of the greatest thrills of my own professional life, I was asked to co-produce and create the liner notes for the complete and re-mastered box set of the final concert performances of the great saxophonist and Coltrane friend Albert Ayler; these were performances that I knew very well from bootleg recording issues over the years but to be a small part in sharing the complete and much improved audio was nothing short of a revelation, a word that I chose as the title of that incredible set of recorded music --- “Revelations”.
Why start at the end?
What is the special place of these final recordings of artists of this magnitude? What can we learn from them, from our special vantage point, knowing what no one knew at the time- that this was going to be the final recorded output of the artist? In the case of Ayler his performances at the Fondation Maegth in the south of France on July 26 and 28 of 1970 were followed by his totally unexpected death in November of that year. In the case of John Coltrane, the performance at the Olatunji Center happened on April 23,1967– in July of that year John Coltrane passed, right here in Huntington at what is now North Shore Hospital.
Why start at the end?
The performance at the Olatundji Center is special for several reasons beyond the fact that it was the last concert recorded before Trane’s transition (he did play one more concert performance in Baltimore in May of that year) – Part of what makes it special is the venue itself.
The Babatunde Olatunji Center in Harlem was founded in 1966 in a second-floor loft by the African percussionist Babatunde Olatunji and his wife as a cultural and educational center as well as a performance space. Coltrane was a great supporter of the work of the percussionist which placed the music in the greater context of community and a celebration of the African cultural diaspora and Trane suggested that he, Yusuf Lateef and Olatunji work together to form an organization to present concerts in the space, but also with the goal of eventually presenting work in the major concert venues of New York such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. In their conversations Trane revealed that he had grown weary of the infrastructure of the jazz industry and the exhausting rhythm of road travel as well as the demands of presenters who were driven by audience numbers and box office receipts more than by art and community. Famously Trane never altered the arc of his own forward-looking artistic path in response to audience expectations or presenter demands, although on the Olantunji concerts it is significant that the second piece the band plays is “My Favorite Things” which was a top selling record for him- more on that later.
John Coltrane was one of the first to donate $500 to Olatunji to support the center which also enjoyed some limited New York City funding, and then they came up with the concept to hold a concert featuring Coltrane’s quartet to further raise funds for the center which served its mission from its founding in 1966 until it finally closed in response to financial pressures and gentrification in Harlem in 1984.
Why start at the end? (audience response)
I think it is a natural impulse for an artist at a certain point in their life to want to both share their personal legacy, but also to create the infrastructure that enables their community to survive and thrive beyond their own personal transition – This is why we ask legacy donors to sponsor cultural infrastructure projects such as buildings with naming rights etc – this is an inherently natural and healthy impulse (unless you are the current sitting president who wants to name our national arts center after themselves…but I digress) .
I think in early 1967 John Coltrane was also feeling this impulse to build the needed infrastructure that creates community, creates a place for the music, for education, for legacy and for creativity. Please remember that in 1967, Universities and National cultural arts agencies were barely dipping their toes into the music of the African American cultural diaspora and so it was truly grass-roots community organizations like the one that Babatunde Olatunji built that would lead the way.
I think it’s so meaningful that John Coltrane’s last recorded performance took place in this community center – not at the Village Vanguard (jazz temple that it is, it is still a commercial establishment with all the pressures of ticket and alcohol sales that commercial jazz clubs need to survive), not in a concert hall in Paris playing for an adoring, and informed audience, but that was not his community – Instead, Trane’s last recorded performance takes place in the heart of Harlem at a place that was built for a community audience (not just jazz specialists) to share creativity, fellowship and legacy in the music.
I want to draw from Babatunde Olatunji’s own writings about that event where he uses traditional Swahili terms to describe some of the impulses he believes Trane was feeling at this time:
Umoja – Unity
Trane was clearly connecting with Tunji on the idea of working to bring community together, especially around his own understanding of himself and his identity as an African-American man and artist – Prior to his diagnosis that year, Trane told Tunji that he wanted to plan a trip to Nigeria to explore musical sources, prophetically saying that he would make the trip…. “God willing….”- it wasn’t meant to be.
Kujichagulia – Self Determination
As we all know, the Music Industry has a long, and checkered history of taking advantage of artists and this is especially true with Black American artists from Ma Rainey to Lil’ Wayne; I think at this moment Coltrane was clear in his intention to take back control of his creativity in both recording and live performance through building infrastructure which respects and nurtures creative artists in Black American music
Nia – Purpose
It was agreed at their initial meeting to share in the expenses of the center and to have John Coltrane’s group open on April 23, “the purpose of which was to bring great Black musical groups back to Harlem thus changing its tarnished image as well as improve and restore its cultural tradition and pride”.
Kuumba – Creativity
Despite already experiencing serious symptoms of his undiagnosed liver cancer, Trane made the appearance on Sunday April 23, playing two sets (4-6pm and 6-8pm) – note the timing which brings the music to the community at a time when families, elderly people, and young people could all attend rather than the Vanguard hours which are not as family-friendly. His quartet with the addition of Pharoah Sanders as well as Algie DeWitt on Bata drums (a Cuban adaptation of Yoruba traditional drums) and Jumma Santos on percussion, and played two brilliant and exploratory sets of music.
Following the concert to capacity crowds that was billed as not only musical performance but also discussion with Coltrane to follow (which didn’t happen due to the capacity crowd and the need to “turn” the audience between sets) , Trane reimbursed the Center $425 for the expenses of promoting the event and paid each musician according to Union rates as was agreed upon - the remainder of the house went to support the Center.
Imani – Faith
Following the opening event, the trio of Tunji, Trane and Lateef made plans for a Jan 14, 1968 event at the Lincoln Philharmonic (now David Geffen) hall for a concert that was to be billed as “An Evening with John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef and Olatunji—In the Roots of Africa” – an event that was not destined to take place. But the event at the Olatunji Center on April 23 1967 clearly set the tone and direction that Trane was taking the music both artistically as well as in terms of building infrastructure and community.
But Why start at the End?
Finally, we arrive at the music itself which was played that Sunday afternoon which we have documented in Coltrane’s’ final recorded performance issued in 2001 as the “Olatunji Sessions”. Two songs were played on the first set that day, “Ogunde” and “My Favorite Things” – the programming is prophetic, looking backwards and forwards at the same time. “Ogunde” is a piece Trane had just recorded on the brilliant “Expression” album which was released posthumously around his birthday in 1967, but in the Olatunji performance it is heard with even more intensity, focus and purpose. Coltrane’s sound which famously seems to drive right into the core of the listeners being is flowing with great strength from his horn, despite the fact that as Rashid Ali reported it, Trane performed seated that day which he never had done before due to his as yet undiagnosed abdominal pain, yet this never diminished or compromised his incredible strength of his sound.
It is an extended performance of the song and despite the obvious limitations of the audio we hear Trane and Rashid Ali clearly with the same incredible shared purpose that is heard on the previous duo recording “Interstellar Space”. Trane’s solo transitions from the structured melodic/motivic development we know from that recording to a more visceral timbral approach, no doubt informed both by his close relationship with Pharoah Sanders but also his great admiration of Albert Ayler whose music follows the path of pure sound, and one could argue an approach that is more directly connected to a West African sound aesthetic. In his great spirit of generosity and encouragement to younger artists, Trane then hands the music off to his colleague and friend Pharoah Sanders who takes the music in the direction of pure sound and energy.
In the recordings you can at one point on Ogunde hear the sounds of a baby crying in the background, which hits me personally with a great emotional impact, and nostalgia; I also once was the co-founder of a community music center, in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn in the early 1990’s along with my friend saxophonist Bruce Huron – which we named the “Fifth House Performance Space” (after the Coltrane tune) . Our community center served as a hub for rehearsal and performance for jazz musicians and lasted for 5 years before the pressures of a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn made it impossible to continue; In my own digital archive of those performance (which you can find on YouTube) there is another Sunday afternoon performance, this one by saxophonist Dewey Redman in duo with the young drummer Matt Wilson. In addition to their amazing performance, you will also hear the sound of my own infant daughter Maya crying during the show as I held her with one arm while I filmed with my mini-DVD camera with the other arm. It is jazz, and community and I cherish those memories – when I heard the baby crying on the recording of the Olatunji sessions it brought me right back to that special feeling of jazz and community.
But Why Start at the End?
Following “Ogunde” and a warm audience applause, we hear Jimmy Garrision launch into an extended strumming bass cadenza. Following many minutes of unaccompanied bass brilliance, Trane enters on soprano with a force and sound on the instrument that is unmatched then or since. While this feels like completely free music, it is not ---- though it is not revealed until about 10 minutes later that the group is playing Trane’s epic Billboard topping hit “My Favorite Things”.
Coltrane’s “hit” tune, his rendition of Roger and Hammerstein’s whimsical waltz “My Favorite Things” from the Sound of Music had been recorded six years earlier in 1961 and it became a sensation for the quartet, a top-selling record heard in jukeboxes around the country. Coltrane continued to play the tune for the rest of his life in various contexts which drove the theme further and further into the realms of abstraction– and yet this bouncy E minor theme in waltz time married to Elvin Jones’ West-African informed approach of multiple polymetric time feels and McCoy Tyner’s expansion of the harmony of the tune based on building massive structures of stacked intervals of the fourth and pan-tonic/pentatonic motivic development created something completely new out of the DNA of this light hearted and whimsical Musical theater chestnut.
In the context of the Olatunji concert, the theme is musical fodder in the hands of this band and has travelled completely into the spirit world as informed by the occasion of this special concert and the focus on connections to the larger world of Pan-African musical and spiritual concepts. We don’t even recognize the theme fully until the entrance of Pharoah Sanders on tenor, following Trane’s extended soprano explorations and it is Pharoah that lets us know that we are indeed hearing the familiar Coltrane anthem here before he launches into his own language of remarkable pure tenor saxophone vibration.
Given the freedom and ecstasy of this performance we might wonder, why did Trane call the tune “My Favorite Things” (or more likely simply launched into it on the spot)? Why didn’t that band play another theme from the recent “Expression” recording session, or simply improvise free? I believe that playing the familiar theme here in unfamiliar ways was intentional as Trane wanted to reach a helping hand out to the audience which was not made up of downtown jazz hipsters or European critics, but of community in Harlem which might find the inclusion of his hugely popular “My Favorite Things” theme as a welcoming entry point to his music of pure energy.
Pharoah brings the theme home with a brief additional improvisation by Trane at the end and then one of the most remarkable moments of this performance occurs when Coltrane quotes the Clifford Brown theme “Joy Spring” on soprano in the middle of his signature motivic pan-tonal improvisation!! A brief moment yes, but one which is so meaningful to me as this artist, now four months away from his transition, in the middle of a stream of consciousness improvisation finds in his flow a bebop standard which he never officially recorded beyond bootlegs of jam session versions of the tune -a bop anthem he no doubt knew and played frequently in his younger days as a tenor sax virtuoso coming of age in the hard-bop steeped environment of Philadelphia.
BUT WHY START AT THE END!!!????
Coltrane’s brief quote of “Joy Spring” is a full circle moment for me – a moment when Coltrane’s powerful free jazz explorations come home to meet his younger self and celebrate all of the roots and branches of this remarkable and remarkably brief artistic and professional life.
Why Start at the End?
Finally, I come back to my central proposition here today – that there is something special to be gained and learned from hearing the final performances of a giant like Coltrane – and what do we gain from carefully listening to this performance?
First and foremost to me is the context of Trane’s desire to share his music with community on April 23, 1967, and to build and support new infrastructure through the Babatunde Olatunji Center that would carry the legacy past present and future of the music and the culture forward for generations. And from our vantage point now in 2026 we can ask the questions - Has the promise of this community-based approach that Trane was advocating for been fulfilled?
That’s a larger question than we can answer today, beyond noting that there are many organizations continuing the work in some form, from the huge ones like Jazz at Lincoln Center which is an essential partner in the work we do at LIU Post and the Tilles Center, to the venerable Vision Festival in New York which for 25 years has held onto a vision of freedom in improvised music and for whom I ran an education program called the Visionary Youth Orchestra which played at Cecil Taylor’s memorial), to the Stonybrook Jazz Loft, to countless smaller organizations doing the work across the country. And of course, The Coltrane Home which is embracing the dual mission of preserving the legacy while building for the future in powerful ways.
In the world of jazz, history and legacy there is always the danger of leaning into the preserving side of things. A talk on “The Weight of History” is how I start my own Jazz History classes- legacy is essential, and this is an important moment for jazz archivists as we are just reaching the tipping point of losing the primary sources of all the formative periods of jazz, including free jazz, but while we are preserving we need to continue to build the infrastructure which allows the music to grow, transform, and stay relevant in the hands of new generations of artists.
Why Start at the End?
Here finally is my answer to my own question - Because as stated in the Book of Revelations, the Alpha is the Omega – or as Albert Ayler put it in his own musical revelation, “Omega is the Alpha” – the ending is the beginning. In his “Joy Spring” quote, some of the final recorded notes we hear Coltrane play reference some of the first notes; the work never ends, it continues without start, without ending, a wave of creativity and divine inspiration that we can all catch a short ride on when we can catch it, wherever it takes us. There is no beginning, and there is no ending.
I want to finish by quoting the somewhat unlikely host of the Olatunji Center concerts, Dr. Billy Taylor, who introduced that band that day with these words….
“ The only person who can really discuss what he does…..the music which is so important to us… is John Coltrane”
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