High Point goes all-out to honor Coltrane
By Jeri Rowe
Staff Writer
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Click here to see and hear more from the John Coltrane Jazz Workshop.HIGH POINT — Finally.
The City of Furniture wants to become known as the City of John Coltrane. It's about time.
For years, I thought the city neglected its local link to one of the musical giants of jazz. I don't believe that any longer.
The city of High Point has bought Coltrane's old house. The High Point Museum has significantly beefed up its collection. And a group of volunteers is raising money to pay for an 8-foot bronze statue of the musician, which they want to plant this fall in front of the city's symbolic center: City Hall.
Now, you could argue the statue belongs along East Washington Drive in Coltrane's old neighborhood, a historically significant corridor once known as the "Harlem of High Point."
No matter. At least city officials and business leaders realize the need to spotlight Coltrane's local roots.
WANT TO HELP?
Send donations for the John Coltrane statue to High Point Museum and put The Coltrane Project in the memo section. The museum’s address is 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point, NC 27262.The jaded journalist in me says High Point needs the money and identity generated from Coltrane's legacy.
In the city that furniture built, there's a growing worry about the waning influence of furniture and the International Home Furnishings Market, a $1 billion annual moneymaker threatened by a scrappy upstart out west.
Yet, that jaded feeling faded once I stepped inside Penn-Griffin School for the Arts this week, hung with dozens of young musicians and felt the enthusiasm generated by the John Coltrane Jazz Workshop, a five-year-old band camp that now attracts about 80 students from across the Triad.
I watched Noah Parrish, a rising seventh-grader at Aycock Middle School, tote around an upright bass bigger than he was so he could dive into Coltrane's music.
I listened to workshop director Wally West tell a dozen teenage musicians, "I bet John Coltrane is looking down from above and saying, 'Carry on my brother and sisters.' "
Then, I spotted Obhajiajiemen Emiohe. She sat in the back row with her saxophone. It's her fourth year at the workshop, and she loves coming to meet new people and learn about her hometown hero.
"People feel that High Point is a small town and that a lot of things don't happen here, but we have so many things,'' said Obhajiajiemen, 15, a rising junior at Andrews High School whose first name means "Give us joy'' in an African dialect.
"Basketball stars. Baseball stars. And now John Coltrane. That should be out there. This is the stuff that helped us get to where we are today."
For many local African Americans, the memories of Coltrane are as cherished as a family Bible.
Take Sylvester Smith. His uncle Jonathan, the band director at William Penn High School, Coltrane's alma mater, often told his relatives of seeing Coltrane sitting atop his house at 118 Underhill St., playing his saxophone as the marching band came by.
Coltrane, Uncle Jonathan told anyone who would listen, was shy and a little weird. But man, he could play.
"People have roots with him, and that's the beauty of it all,'' said Smith, a juvenile counselor whose 16-year-old son, Syndi, has attended the workshop for the past five years.
Yes, it is. High Point understands that now. Finally.
Last summer, the High Point Museum unveiled three Coltrane items it bought for $19,588: a fifth-grade report on Negro history, an award from Downbeat magazine and three sheets of musical notations.
Then, in November, the museum unveiled Coltrane's family piano, thanks to a successful campaign that raised $17,025 from 83 donors in North Carolina, across the country and as far away as Japan.
That same month, the city spent $42,500 to buy Coltrane's house, a ramshackle rental with furniture cluttering the front porch. City officials plan to renovate it and open it to the public.
And then there's the statue. After a two-year effort, volunteers have raised $50,000 toward the $80,000 they need. Several fund-raising events are planned before erecting the statue on or around what would have been Coltrane's 80th birthday: Sept. 23.
Coltrane was a genius who died too young. He was 40, taken by liver cancer in 1967.
It's anyone's guess why High Point took so long to take advantage of Coltrane's local legacy. But it's happening now.
And how sweet that is to see.
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