No. 165: Very Dark

JOHN COLTRANE By Tom Wills, August 2012

It's unfortunate that listening to John Coltrane will forever make me angry.
It's not Trane's fault. No, I enjoy the highs and lows and wild surges in his music and I have gone out of my way to collect as much of it as possible.

Though I love it, this music for me is tainted by a bad memory that no melody can hide, no burst of energy will overcome.

Sax and suit take shape.

What were you doing on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001? 8:46 and 9:03 a.m., precisely?
My young family had gone down the road to St. Pius X School, for school and work. I had the morning off, not scheduled to drive to Youngstown until about 2:30 p.m.
The old house in Warren, Ohio was quiet.  Even the dog was asleep.
Not a sound except for John Coltrane.

Many pencils were destroyed during this production.

The performances by John Coltrane are:
Naima.
Impressions.
On Green Dolphin Street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_ywkpVJ624
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me7P9qqBgwI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny1n5E4IdYY

The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846.  Sick motherf**ker,

My television was off.  I was downstairs, in the Man Cave next to the converted coal furnace, under the big pipes. I was recording onto a big old reel a multiple CD collection of John Coltrane that I had borrowed from the public library. Nothing else was on my radar.

Handmade, hand-engraved frame.

I had it up pretty loud and barely heard the phone.
My mother-in-law. Never a good call on a good day. 
"Do you have your TV on?"
Nope, the newsman said.
"Better turn it on."

I've Just Seen A Face

I didn't see the first plane hit the World Trade Center's North Tower, but I saw the second one burst open the South Tower.
I don't remember what song was playing. It doesn't really matter.
That was the abrupt ending. I turned off the music and shut out the lights.
Terrorists.
I was at work before noon and we newsmen and women were planning local reaction to a national horror.

Just wild.

The Coltrane reel didn't get finished for some months afterward. It may have even been a year.  I just couldn't do it, and had long since returned the CDs to the library.
I can tell the exact moment I stopped and started: The rest of the tape is from vinyl, and you can hear the occasional clicks and pops.

The ironically named tape.

This is a very dark drawing by design, and was very much an act of determination. That's a lot of black, and I killed a lot of Dollar General No. 2 graphite pencils (they are cheap and dark).
I worked an hour or so daily for more than three weeks -- more on weekends -- probably 40 hours.

At the drawing board.

It was painful, all of that shading and remembering.
I played that tape as I drew. That old 3M tape is red, not brown, but has held its memory. It's six hours long and I ran it through more than once.

Clicks and pops.
It's jarring, actually.
Forever.

John Coltrane is for sale. Contact hankbonesman@embarqmail.com for information.