 Jazz musicians have many varied and strongly held spiritual beliefs but they never so far as I know forced their belief on you. It's just anti the code of the music. Denzi was Baha'i. Chick Corea was into Scientology. Art Blakey was Abdullah ibn Buhayna a Muslim. Herbie Hancock and Wayne Sharter were Buddhists. Luke Soloff and Shelley Mann were Jewish and if you could put all of them on a bandstand they would play some of the greatest music you ever heard with no discussion. Somebody practice a belief so be it. The words of my daddy, man the world is hard enough. Leave people alone. In 1962 John Coltrane came to New Orleans. I grew up looking at a photo he and my father had taken at the time. Every musician who came into my house looked at that photo like they were seeing a ghost and a prophet. Man is that trained with E? That's what we call my father E. It was the one possession my father most prized. In 1964 the John Coltrane Quartet recorded the seminal spiritual document in jazz, A Love Supreme. Because of the singularity, clarity and earnestness of this composition it became the major jazz cultural phenomena of the 60s. Well there was a much listened to and purchased recording unheard of for that type of serious very progressive content and from a very serious uncompromising musician. Elvin Jones the volcanic drummer with the Quartet was like a father to me. I spent so many evenings from midnight to 5 a.m. and his and his wife Kaco's apartment. Always the same invitation. Kaco got two lobsters need to be at. Call it 12 o'clock. He beamingly told me once that some people referred to the band Coltrane Quartet as two saints and two devils. The saints being John Coltrane who studied many religious traditions and Muslim pianist McCoy Tyner. Well Elvin and bassist Jimmy Garrison were the two others whose religious affiliations were unknown but who were known to close down clubs and bars across the world. And Elvin played with other worldly depth and with a very unusual wave to his swing. He had some non-mathematical way of coordinating everything that would make you feel as if you were on the deck of a small ship in rough seas. But still you knew you would never tip over because he would always real you right back in. Still you had to find your middle path in the time. I was asking him about sustained notes playing longer notes at that time. He said man you got to believe in those notes. The more you try to say the deeper you have to believe. Though a known hellraiser he insisted. You always do that when he's talking. He give you a big set up. A moral framework of some sort must undergird your artistry and if you're just playing notes well I mean everybody plays notes. A love supreme has four movements. Acknowledgement, resolution, pursuance and song. Song is a written prayer played as a chant. On this album train provided a very small but meaningful amount of written material to give the quartet space to improvise some of the most complex and fundamental music ever heard. Train sums up his moral philosophy and the words of the prayer. God is, he always was, he always will be and near the end of the prayer are my favorite lines. God breathes through us so completely, so gently. We hardly feel it yet. It is our everything. Words of absolute belief spoken with no predation, no arrogance, no force, exploitation, proselytizing or blame or anything to reduce the humanity of others and the playing is much more descriptive and precise than the words. Well I played in Art Blake's Jazz Messages from 1980 to 82. He used to growl, well I don't care what you believe as long as you believe something. You'll never find an armored car following a hearse.