The John Coltrane House

This was the home of the pioneering jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane (1926-1967), one of the inventors of “free jazz.” He owned the house and lived here during the critical years in the 1950s when he developed his characteristic musical language.

This is one of a row of houses that were built ca. 1895-1900 by developer Clifford Pemberton on a prime site facing into Fairmount Park. The designer was probably the architect-builder Ethan Allen Wilson (1874-1940), who created an up-to-date medley of Queen Anne and Colonial Revival features, including a Dutch-style pediment, third-story Palladian window, and classically detailed porch. The interiors are largely Colonial Revival

After being operated initially as a rental property, the house was sold in 1919 to Karl W. Konrad, a caterer, and it remained in his family until July 21,1952, when it was bought by John Coltrane for $5,416.00. He lived here with his mother, his cousin Mary Alexander, and James Kinzer, a childhood friend. They were soon joined by Juanita (Naima) Austin, whom Coltrane met in June 1954 and married on October 3, 1955. 

Coltrane had moved to Philadelphia from North Carolina upon graduation from high school in 1943. He worked in a sugar refinery while studying at the Ornstein School of Music. Enlisting in the navy in 1945, he played his saxophone in a navy band. When he was discharged in 1946 he returned to Philadelphia, where the bustling jazz scene offered many opportunities to perform in local clubs and study. Coltrane used the G.I. Bill to enroll at the Granoff School of Music, where Dizzy Gillespie and McCoy Tyner also studied.

In 1949 Coltrane joined Gillespie's band, remaining for just over a year. After buying this house, he continued to travel with various bands until September 1955 when he joined  the quintet of jazz innovator Miles Davis (1926-1991). They collaborated fruitfully but fractiously, sometimes publicly arguing, until Davis fired him in April 1957 over his use of cocaine and alcohol. This seems to have been the jolt that Coltrane needed, and, further reinforced by the faith in God that he absorbed from his preacher father and by his wife’s devout Muslim beliefs, he locked himself in the back bedroom of his house, taking nothing but water, until the drugs were out of his system.  

Having broken his addictions, Coltrane moved to New York in July 1957 to play in Thelonious Monk's quartet, and at the end of the year Davis rehired him. The two advanced the project of inventing a new, freer jazz, which, unlike bebop (the prevalent style), was based on modal accompaniment rather than conventional chord progressions. The most important recording of this collaboration is Miles Davis's “Kind of Blue,” released in 1959.

Until he died in 1967, Coltrane continued to visit this house when touring. His mother lived here until her own death in 1977, and his cousin Mary Alexander, the “Cousin Mary” of his 1960 album “Giant Steps,” was the last family member to live here, moving away in 2004.
 

Address: 1511 N 33rd St, Philadelphia, PA 19121

Photo credit: Billy Penn at WHYY