Music Monday: John Coltrane in High Point, North Carolina

We often associate John Coltrane’s musical career with his time in New York or Philadelphia, but Coltrane grew up in central North Carolina and attended high school in Hight Point, North Carolina.

This weekend, I took in some of the sights (and sites) associated with Coltrane there. The most notable is probably the large mural painted by Jeks.

High Point has also a monument in downtown celebrate one of the town’s most famous sons. My photo leaves much to be desired…

Finally, we visited Coltrane’s home in High Point on Underhill Street. Apparently the home owned by the City of High Point and some funds were appropriated for its renovation as a museum in 2022. 

The home looked cared for, but as far as I could tell, it wasn’t open for visitors or anything like that. Of course, this isn’t the only Coltrane home that activists have sought to preserve. His home in Philadelphia and his home in Dix Hills, New York (or here) have received attention and earned recognition as historic landmarks. 

It’s interesting to consider why John Coltrane’s memory seems to focus on houses. On the one hand, this is a pretty standard way to understand and preserve heritage especially for individuals whose cultural contributions were, in some sense, immaterial. It may be a bit romantic to envision the intensely spiritual aspect of Coltrane’s art as demanding a kind of grounding in the more mundane world of the domestic. It would be a bridge to far, I expect, to argue that an interest in the human elements of Coltrane’s life grounded his spiritual flights in domestic space as a way to remind us that such flights often start from humble origins.