MJoTAtalks
Dr Susanna's guide to

www.MJoTA.org
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www.MJoTAtalks.org click here

www.drsusanna.org click here
Dr Susanna loves the countries and the peoples of Africa
 
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John Coltrane and friends
From Wikipedia:

"John Coltrane was born in North Carolina on Sep 23, 1926. In June 1943 he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He enlisted in the Navy in 1945, and played in the Navy jazz band in Hawaii.

A former home, the John Coltrane House in Philadelphia, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1999."

Pictures above and right: from the same neighborhood in North Philadelphia as the John Coltrane House.
John Coltrane. MJoTA 2012 v5n1p0520

On Friday I drove through North Philadelphia the long way so I could watch my daughter race on the Schuykil River: her final race as a high school student. I drove past a house that had a prominent sign, saying that John Coltrane had lived there.

Ah! John Coltrane lived across the street from Fairmont Park, with its vast fields and mansions and hills and mighty river!

Since Friday I have been hearing John Coltrane play in my head, here is a lovely song that goes on and on.
John Coltrane: Veteran and Musician. SJ Dodgson. MJoTA 2012 v5n2 p0717

Above, mural on the side of a building in North Philadelphia, close to where John Coltrane lived for some years. The mural includes a quote from Aristotle: "Hope is a waking dream". Lovely. 

John Coltrane was a jazz musician and I often listen to his music while working on the MJoTA sites. So can you, for his music and pictures of North Philadelphia click here.

John Coltrane was in the American Navy when the United States absurdly had 2 sets of armed forces: one for designated sons and daughters of Africa, the other for everyone else. Philadelphia has a museum for veterans of the segregated armed forces click here.

He died on July 17 in 1967. What a time in the history of America, in the history of Africa, in the history of music. The nation of Biafra had been declared 6 weeks earlier and the starvation by genocide by Russia, United States and Great Britain. Link to Biafra stories click here.