Best Of: ‘Wonder Man’ actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II / John Coltrane centennial

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Disney announced the series would not return for a second season.

But getting laid off is how he found acting in the first place. "I came all getting laid off and losing jobs. What up with that? You know, every time I do, it turns into something better. You know what I mean?

I wanted to win this one. I'm going to turn it to." Also, we'll hear from saxophonist, Ravi Coltrane, son of Jazz Musician John Coltrane. He was two when his father died, and growing up, he was just known as Ravi.

“But who's I picked up saxophonist, only I was John Coltrane, son?”

Plus, Kintucker reviews a new album by the trio The Womax sisters, granddaughters of Samcook

and Mises of Bobby Womack. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. This week on the NPR Politics podcast, Democratic Socialists are having a moment. What's their goal? The goal being to eventually relive the Democratic Party to perhaps some day develop

of an independent party, but we recognize that in the United States they're just as a two-party system. How Democratic Socialists are staking out political territory. This week on the NPR Politics podcast. Hey, it's Ravi from Kartalk.

You tied up all the depth and thoughtful care that goes into NPR shows, wants some good old fashion goofing around and stumbling, they figure out what's going on. Well, I've been taking occasional car questions again. You can hear them by signing up for NPR Plus, along with lots of other bonus content. Just go to plus.npr.org.

On NPR's wildcard podcast, musicians Sarah Burrellis, on being a cryer. My mom is a big cryer too, and she loves to take credit for my crying. Mom, my crying is mine. Watch or listen to that wildcard conversation on the NPR app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Fresh Air Weekend, I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Yaya Abdul-Mateen II. He's nominated for an Emmy for the Marvel Series Wonder Man.

“He plays Simon Williams, a struggling actor with a secret.”

He has real superpowers, and if anyone finds out, he doesn't just lose his career. He loses his freedom. Abdul-Mateen grew up in both New Orleans in Oakland, studied architecture at UC Berkeley, and worked as a city planner until a layoff sent him to the Yale School of Drama.

He booked his first major role in 2015, nearing 30, and since then, he's performed on

Broadway and top-doc underdog, Ben Cast is Black Manta, an Aquaman, Bobby Seal, and the trial of the Chicago Seven, the lead in Candy Man, and won an Emmy for playing Dr. Manhattan, and HBO's Watchman. Wonder Man made him to lead in his very own Marvel series, and then two weeks after his Emmy nomination, Disney canceled the show a few months after a second season, had already

been announced. Yaya Abdul-Mateen II, welcome to Fresh Air. What's up, what's up, thank you, I'm happy to be here. Why you laughing?

“You know, I don't really reflect back so far, that far, and you know, when you first”

said my name, and then you go through when you tell the story, and then even you ended off, he said, "And he just lost his job." And now he's sitting in front of me, and he just lost his job, and I just thought that that was so, it's so funny the way that I'm being talked about right now. But you know, I mean, there's so much to talk about, the thing about it is, when Marvel

approached you, you said, "I only have one Marvel dollar to spend." Yeah, yeah, yeah. You asked yourself whether Wonderman was the actual role that you were going to spend that dollar. I'm really curious, I thought that was a really interesting way to talk about entering

the Marvel universe, and being a part of something that's so big, how are you reflecting on it, now that you have spent that dollar, and you've gone through this journey, on this show that it's highly respected. Yeah, so far, dollar was, but for sure, look at the experience that I had, you know, and I got to put it out.

Now, when I said that, I was talking about fun and longevity. You know, I was talking specifically against a one-off. A role that is going to stand the test of time, and not be a one-off.

That's what a dollar will spend would be.

Now, when I flashed to present day, and I do reflect back, boy, of course it was a dollar was spent. I got to make a fantastic show, and I got to play a fantastic character who many people related to. Wonderman is not a typical Marvel story.

There's almost no action. It's a comedy, and it's a comedy about auditioning, shot like an indie film, and the heroes battles are with casting directors and in his own head. Your character Simon Williams, he's a working actor in Los Angeles, years in without a break, when a reclusive director announces a remake of this cheesy 80 superhero.

“Have you ever wanted a role as bad as Simon wanted Wonderman?”

Oh, let me think. There has to be a yes. Yeah. There has to be a yes in there somewhere. I wanted to play both in the character that I played in the play called Top Dog.

Underdog, I've been wanting to do that for 20 years before I got a chance to do it, but I never did a pursuit. I don't know if I've wanted anything. I can't think of anything that I've pursued in the same way that Simon pursued, Wonderman, because he was, he was doing some crazy things for it.

But actors mean that actors we do all type of thing, I was telling the story, I was lying on my resume to my telling the story. I was lying on my resume, you know, back in 2012, talking about all the different skills and accents I could do and things like that.

“Oh, he first graduated when I first came from acting school?”

No, no, no. I hadn't gone to school yet. This was when I was just getting little jobs in the Bay Area, little acting jobs. And I was overexaggerating. I had maybe played the ball and goals two times and said, yeah, I could do that.

I put it on my resume, I may have done an accent in class one time, so I said, you know, that wouldn't do hard. I put that on my resume, you know. But that's what you got to do. You got to, you got to, you got to, you know, stack the cards in your favor.

Well, it gave you the goal to do it, you know? I didn't know no better. And it was, and it was just too much empty space on my resume. So I needed to figure out, I needed to find things that I could do.

“So I could write it down, I think it would, would game in a car, the empty space.”

That's what, that's what game in a car. Season one ends with us expecting to now see what Simon is going to be like, now that he has all the things that he has been fighting and working toward. He is Wonderman. And they point to a pattern of marvel involving black led projects.

There's Wonderman canceled despite your nomination for Emmy, Blade, dead after seven years, Ironhard, armor wars, it's just a whole bunch. And the argument is that Marvel doesn't protect its black led projects. You kind of have rejected that, what do you see it? It's not that I've rejected that.

I made the observation based off my experience when you look at the history of those projects. And when you put them all together, there's no way around it, it does not look good. It does not look like good business. And it looks like it's certainly not favorable to its black creators. That's what it looks like.

So I'd be, I'd be ignorant if I didn't, if I'd be, you know, willfully blind if I chose not to make the observation.

I'm always interested in the truth and I'm always interested in what is true for me.

And what is true for me is that, in the case of Wonderman, I actually don't know what happened. What did they tell you? I've heard things about viewership. What I wouldn't say is that if that is the case, then when it comes to black led projects, especially black led niche projects, I think they need a little bit more time to cook.

Because I think black audiences usually find out and gravitate to the niche projects a little bit slower. They're a little bit behind because they're not always, that's not what's always marketed to us. And I think that it was one of those projects that needed a bit more time to cook if it was

going to depend on the black audience to also give some buoyancy to the numbers of that show.

Nevertheless, I will circle back and always come back to the point that I'm so thankful

and blessed to have been able to be a part of something that was special, that is special,

The reason why I think I'm getting so much love is because people are, yes, they do feel for me, but what's actually going on is that they love that show. People really enjoy that show. I know what it's like to have one of my favorite shows, be cancelled or it defiantly in. You got to find a way to feel that, to feel that slot, to feel that void.

“So I think it's a sign that our show gave a lot of people a lot of joy and relief in”

some distraction in this world. I do hope that I get another chance to step back into that one to make character. You grew up between New Orleans and the Bay and somehow you went to 13 different schools. I think so. I think I think it tracks like that, yeah, that's like changing schools every few years.

Why did your family move so much?

Always looking for a better life, always looking for a better school, you know, there was

six of us, so a lot of that sometimes was about trying to find whatever was convenient for my parents and like the best fit for our education and things like that. Was it ever a moment when you got tired of it? No, I didn't even notice it. You did?

No. No, because there was so much love in my home, you know, so whatever now could be perceived as some type of instability or anything like that, I always, we were shielded from that. You know, my parents did a fantastic, fantastic job and like I say, when we went to different schools, we were looking for a better education.

“How do you think that experience shape to you are being the new person all the time?”

Yeah, I mean, I think that it's made me more observant. I enter into new environment, sort of quiet, you know, looking around and sort of calculated and doing the math on my surroundings. And then after a little bit, after a little while, you know, I take a little bit more space.

Now, when I went to high school, I went to one high school, and so high school was my

first time entering into a space with the same students, basically entering into a school,

just sort of on the same level as everybody else. So high school was really where I sort of socially blossomed like in the ninth grade. And sort of gained my confidence. But what I did have by the ninth grade was my individuality. You know, I was myself. Which is that mean, yeah, to that look like, well, I wasn't a follower, you know, we had

my high school reunion in the bag.

“And the bag, yeah, and Oakland was, I think it was the last year of the year before.”

And I was at lunch with my best friend from high school, and then with another one of my friends, also from high school. And he said, yeah, yeah, I mean, you, he said he was different. I said, what, he said, yeah, man, you know, your dad would drop you off on the motorcycle. And, you know, you would just, you would just different.

And when I think back, I was like, you know, I think, wow, you know, I guess I was. But I was always myself. You know, I've been called just about the weird one. When did I do that? Yeah, there was an interview where you said, I was a little weird.

I was nerdy, but I also played sports and yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I don't know why. Why I use that word, but I was, I was different, but, you know, but I, but I, but I like myself. You know what I mean, whatever it was about me that made me different, I didn't know it. I didn't know that I was different, that's the thing, and I liked myself.

Everybody's different, you know, I was confident enough to, I didn't have the cool shoes. That didn't even feel like it fit my personality. You know, as I remember one time, I wore, I got some Jordans. It was the first time I had like the cool shoes and I wore them to school in the front of my arm and he didn't let me rest.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I, you know, pointing at me because I got the new cool shoes on it.

I was a little bit embarrassed, but, you know, but I was always confident in who I was.

That's funny to be embarrassed, right, by, by wearing the latest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, because I wasn't that kid, so it's sort of, you know, it was as if I was trying on a cool for the first time. People called your family the black, pretty, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

They were the youngest, the youngest, yeah, we had a mom that, the dogs, the station wagon, and what I like to say is we didn't have the, you know, white picket fence, we had the

You talked about having a stutter.

“Yeah, I started growing up, even, even to this day, I started most of the time, it can”

be intense if I, if I let myself get comfortable, you know, right now my brain is on. So, um, um, um, conscious to take my time and things like that, but if I wasn't worried about taking my time, then you would be able to tell, oh, he started. Oh, really? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So, are there particular words or, are words sometimes tend to get me, it just depends. But, say, I have this thing, right, I have two streams of consciousness going on, basically all the time. And, I can feel the stutter on its way, and when I know when I'm about to stutter, then

I switch over to the second stream of consciousness and I go, I go around the stutter and then I keep on going. When I'm at home and I don't feel like doing that, I just stay on my single stream of consciousness and I just stutter. I just let the stutter go and I just get through it.

Yeah.

It's always been that way for you.

I think so. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Architecture was your major at UC Berkeley, and you've talked about how you took

drama classes to help you overcome your stutter. Yeah. So, that you could do your presentations for-- Yeah. Yeah.

That didn't work. It didn't work at all. But, I found, you know, acting, and I didn't stutter when I acted. I never stuttered with a script ever.

What do you think it is about the drama and the drama class that really allowed you to

be in that space? I'll rehearse the words, so it's just really all muscle memory. I know you don't know any different, but it sounds like it's a lot of work. It's exhausting.

Having the two, I mean, we all have double consciousness to a certain extent. Is that exhausting? Yeah. It's a little bit of work, but, you know, it helps me to articulate myself better and things like that.

One needs to care. You know what I mean? Who knows? I do what works for me right now. It helps me to communicate better, you know?

I don't want to be on TV and on my interviews just stuttering all over the place and making a mess, you know?

“But it's still kind of amazing because I've heard other actors who have also, I think, James”

Earl Jones has talked about. He had a stutter. But stuttering is frustrating, for example, if I were to stutter right now, sometimes you just wouldn't be able to hear anything. I just wouldn't be able to say the word.

He may have radio silence for about eight seconds and I'm not even making sounds. Other times I sound like the car engine trying to start and that's when I'm being stubborn and just trying to push it through, you know, and I don't feel like taking my time. I don't feel like going to my alternate words, you know, this is just what I know. Our guest today is actor Yaya Abdul Matin II, we'll be right back after a short break.

I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. This week on NewsMakers, after more than a decade in comedy, I wasn't sure that we would get here. Robbie Hoffman is fearless, I had a small feeling I wasn't sure, and fully or herself. My line Lord.

Hello? You can go out and wash. Well, I'm not home now, I'm doing something. We plunge into comedy and success with Robbie Hoffman on NPR's NewsMakers. I'm Jesse Forn, on Bulls Eye, American Football, they're one of the world's most beloved

emo bands, and they know that their songs are pretty emo. There's some lines that I'm back away from, like, a little bit, just like, well, maybe they won't catch this one. Find Bulls Eye in the NPR app at maximumfund.org or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air Weekend, I'm Tonya Mosley.

Let's get back to my interview with actor Yaya Abdul Matin II. He's nominated for an Emmy for his lead role in Wonder Man, a Marvel comedy about a struggling

“actor, who's hiding the secret that he has real superpowers.”

Abdul Matin II grew up between New Orleans and Oakland, the youngest of six, studied architecture at UC Berkeley, and worked as a city planner in San Francisco until a layoff sent him to the Yale School of Drama. Since then, he starred in several television productions, which include starring as Black Manta and Aquaman and Bobby Seal and the trial of the Chicago 7, he won an Emmy for

playing Dr. Manhattan and HBO's Watchman and earned a Tony nomination for his Broadway debut and top dog underdog. This year, he also starred in and served as executive producer of Netflix's Man on Fire, stepping into the role of John Creasy, a part Denzel Washington made iconic. Is it true that your dream, since you were a child, was to be a city planner?

To be an architect? Yeah, I wanted to be an architect.

“That's why I wanted to college to study it.”

Was it in the back of your mind during that time period acting as well? No, actually, I didn't even know if that was possible.

I never even thought about that.

Somebody, I'll keep your story short, but a team made a mind, you know, dared me, dared me to take an acting class. For a type of teammate, I was on the track team at Berkeley, and one day we were at practice, you know, making fun of the coaches and things like that on the team build an exercise. And I got up in front of everybody and did an impersonation, everybody was laughing.

The next day, they were still talking about it, and my teammate, he dared me to take it to the other class. I was looking for easy class to take, and I auditioned and took the class, it didn't take it seriously. In the sense that I did all the work, but I used to be late to class and, you know, things

like that, I wasn't the best representation of what a type of student should be. But I always knew my lines, I rehearsed for real, I don't know how present I was, but when it was my turn to work, I always put in the work and I always took the work seriously, I didn't take the attendance the most seriously.

And after that semester, the teacher, she told me, I just ran into her in the building

one day, and she said, hey, she said, you're really good, and I hope you take, I hope you take some more classes. And I wasn't necessarily intending to, you know, but I was like, oh, I didn't know that. Maybe I will. So the next class that I took, I found something that I thought would be a good opportunity

to work on my starter, and then that just put me deeper into this world. You're deep in this world, but you still, you graduate with an architecture degree, and you work for the City of San Francisco, as in the city planning department. Yeah, the mayor's office of housing. Yeah, what was your job?

I was a program coordinator for a project called the SF Hope Initiative.

“I believe it's been almost 15 years now.”

You still remember? Yeah, yeah, the youth SF leadership academy, youth SF leadership academy, I think that's what it was called. Yeah. But I was a program coordinator.

My job was to, was to pair young people with architects and with city planners and six of the housing projects in San Francisco that were undergoing a redevelopment process. And so I was teaching, well, facilitating the program that taught architecture and city planning, curriculum, to the young people, so that they could work with the planners to get educated feedback on what they wanted in their neighborhoods.

Were you enjoying the job? Absolutely. You got laid off, though. Yeah. It was like 11 months.

11 months later, you get laid off. People are getting laid off and losing jobs, what up with that? What up with that?

“Every time I do it, it turns into something better, you know what I mean?”

Yeah, sure. I wanted to go with this. I'm going to turn into. Well, I mean, you got a whole slew of projects, so you get laid off, and you give yourself three years to become an actor, or you'd go back to school.

Well, I was going to give my masters in planning and probably working politics. You decided to go to grad school for it. You ended up at Yale School of Drama. That is a prestigious acting school. It's one of the best in the world, it's for serious actors.

When you went there, did you have a specific dream of the type of actor that you wanted to be? Not necessarily. I just wanted training. I knew that actors from that school were working on Broadway.

That was really, because by then, all the acting I had done was in theater. So I was like, well, okay, well, what's the, how far can you go in theater where you can go to Broadway? So, you know, I was hoping to get enough training to go and do Broadway, and then you see what happened.

Happens next. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I'm dual-meteen the second.

This has been such a pleasure. It has been. Thank you very much. Yeah, yeah, a dual-meteen the second. He's nominated for an Emmy for the Marvel Series Wonder Man, and his new film by Any Means,

is in theaters now. The Womax sisters are a trio with illustrious family ties. Their uncle was R&B Great Bobby Womax, and their grandfather was Sam Cook. The sisters have just released an album of tight harmonies. By contrast, Margaret Glassby, who also has a new album, sings starkly about living a solitary

life. Rock critic Kintucker discusses these contrasting sounds in his review. Let's start with the Womax sisters. Much of the Womax sisters' self-titled new album is filled with music that harks back to the

Since in their blood, their parents are Linda and Cecil Womax, who made beautiful rhythm

“and blues under the name Womax and Womax.”

Their uncle, Bobby Womax, possessed the gravely voice that powered hits like looking for a love and across a hundred and tenth street. And their grandfather was the gospel and soul-grade Sam Cook. Now these three sisters, B.G. Kucha and Zamanni, are looking to shape the kind of music they grew up hearing.

For a contemporary audience that doesn't know or care about their illustrious roots.

You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know,

“you know, you know, you know, you know, you know you know, you know, you know, you know,”

that's a song called Show Fur, whose title works as a job description and a metaphor. Apparently, the Womax sisters took a number of jobs over the years to finance their recording, including doing some Uber driving. The lyric is about taking control of one's career, no longer being a passenger, getting behind the wheel.

While this new release is being positioned as the sister's debut, I've been aware of various songs and EP's they've released over the past decade.

“And what strikes me about this album is that it's got their best song writing.”

And for the first time, they transcend nostalgia.

Yes, the music is rooted in 1960's soul, but their crisp tight harmonies possess an urgency and immediacy that speaks to the world we're living in right now. But to your arms is what my heart says, I'm much but dreaming of, don't do that but no harm is what my heart says, I want the scheming of, look into my heart, don't realize you will wait too long, to wait for your money, and not most enough to forget.

You will wait too long, to wait for your money, and not most enough to forget. In contrast to the Womax sisters impeccable harmonies, I give you Margaret Glassbees' voice, ringingly alone, as her pieces interrupted by a former lover who suddenly appears at the end of her driveway. I'm on solid ground with the friends I found, nobody makes me feel at all.

You said you didn't want me. And why did you come all this way? You said you didn't need me. Who's standing in his driveway? That song called Michigan leads off Margaret Glassbees' new album called "I Am Both."

On it, Glassbees acts as a chronicler of doubt, hesitation, misgiving, of the emotions that can grind a relationship to a halt. She keeps circling back to the word "nothing." Doing nothing is something I do too well, she sings on one song. In another, she describes a couple stuck in a rut.

The music is mostly Glassbeen her acoustic guitar with an occasional puff on a harmonica.

Discrete keyboards and drums slip in here and there. Working with producer Joe Henry, Glassbees sounds as though she's walking through the rooms of an empty house, taking in memories good and bad, assigning blame and taking responsibility. "Can't you read my mind? I thought to have as he was a requirement for love."

So I romance thinking that you're well acquainted with body language.

“"I didn't know I had to speak her, that's why I'm folding your laundry, and I'm making”

a meal of it, I'm slamming doors, you be open, and I'm hoping you're feeling it.

I thought we were on the same page, apparently not, I'll in a silent rage."

"I'm sorry for being so petty." That line I'm slamming doors, you leave open, and I'm hoping you're feeling it. Oh boy, that really kills me. With Glassbee and the Womax sisters, our women who've been put to the test by men who resist understanding their pain and their power.

They know that relationships are a lot more complicated than victim and victimizer, and use their work to untangle these snarled dynamics to better understand and explain themselves to us.

“"Can't you talk or review new music by the Womax sisters and Margaret Glassbee?”

Coming up, we'll hear from saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, son of Jazz Great John Coltrane.

This is Fresh Air Weekend." Artificial intelligence is everywhere, and the public backlash is growing. This week, on here and now any time, Arizona's Attorney General, on light she, is reviewing the state's policy on AI-powered cameras from flock, and New York City Public Schools is banning AI for kids until they enter high school.

Can you really keep AI out of the ABCs? Find out on here and now any time, on the NPR app, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Hey, you know that nagging voice in your head, the one telling you to put the phone down and stop doomsgrowing while it's time.

“Click up, take a daily curiosity break with shortwave, NPR Science podcast.”

Let your mind wander to the edges of outer space, or wonder about what's lurking in the depths of the sea floor all in under 15 minutes. Shortwave, your daily mental recent, listen on the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air Weekend, I'm Tanya Mosley. Terry has our next interview, here she is.

The Jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane was born 100 years ago, the Centennial is September 23rd, and the celebration includes concerts, album reissues, and a new book of Coltrane photos edited by my guest, Ravi Coltrane, the son of John and Alice Coltrane. Ravi is a highly regarded tenor saxophone player and composer who is recorded as a leader and in other bands.

The book is titled Coltrane, the definitive visual celebration of the legend, and it includes an introduction by Ravi, and several essays, including ones by Patty Smith, Carlos Santana, Kareem Abdul Gibbar, and Phil Lesh. The Coltrane family is organizing some of the Centennial events, and overseeing the estates of Ravi's parents, John and Alice Coltrane.

John Coltrane is one of the most influential musicians in the history of jazz. He was famous for his early recordings in Miles Davis's band, his transcendent balance from the Great American songbook, his modal music, his spiritual music, for popularizing the soprano saxophone and jazz with his recording of my favorite things, and for avant-garde free jazz like no one had heard before.

To quote with the late jazz critic Francis Davis wrote in the New York Times, "Full Disclosure Francis was my husband." Coltrane has come to stand for a discipline mindset, a desire for spiritual ecstasy, a vision of music as ritual, and of performance as a

That's our ITE.

“Depending on what a listener wants from it, Coltrane's music is a cry for black liberation,”

the soundtrack of a spiritual quest, a backdrop for tripping, or the next evolutionary step for jazz after bebop, unquote. Alice Coltrane, Robbie's mother, was the pianist and harpist who played on John's final albums, recorded many albums, and her own name, turned to Vedanta spirituality, and found it an ashram in LA.

Ravi Coltrane, welcome to fresh air, congratulations on the book. I want to start with something from your father's ballads album, because I just think that album is gorgeous and so beautiful that it sounds a little spiritual to me, because it sounds kind of transcendent. Yes.

Absolutely. Where do you see this album fitting into your father's body of work before we hear a song from it?

Well, first of all, thank you Terry for the invitation, it's an honor and pleasure to be speaking

with you. It's a pleasure to have you.

“And yes, I think that album, it really displays his tone, his sound, and I think that”

in fact all of the songs are very beautiful, his interpretation of them, sonically. I mean, I think that's really where the record really gets its power from his tone alone. You won't hear a saxophone, a tenor saxophone sound, quite this beautiful and any recording. That's something we marvel at.

It has this uplift to it, I don't mean that it's uplifting, but his tone, it always sounds

like it's kind of rising. Yes, it carries us, it carries those that aren't really. So let's hear you don't know what love is from John Coltrane's Ballads album. , it's a pleasure to have you. [Music]

So that was from John Coltrane's Ballads album, and when we heard Elven Jones on drums, McCoy, Tyna, piano, and Jimmy Garrison bass. So you just edited a collection of photos of your father and there were a lot of iconic photos in there. You've looked at photos of him throughout your life.

Do you look at his photos in the hopes of finding out more about who he was, but also who you are? Do you ever look at his photos and then look at your face in the mirror and he, like, if you can tell that you're his son? Well, I've been told throughout my life, how much I favor my father.

And you know, at this point, I've outlived my father about 20 years, you know, he passed away at 40. I turned 61 this year.

“And I think, especially with this photo book, it was a real opportunity for me to, you”

know, not only sing these iconic photographs that we all know, but I mean, sing a brand

of photograph for the first time, it's enlightening and elevating, you know.

Some people thought of Coltrane as having, of being divine himself. And there was actually, I'm not sure if it still exists or not. There was a Coltrane church in San Francisco, Coltrane, John's, yeah, and the John was for John Coltrane, and there was even, like, a painting in the church of Coltrane as if

Yeah.

And, you know, they played his music during the service, and he was kind of, like, worshiped.

And that's, you know, it's fascinating, a little strange.

“But, what's it like for you to have your father literally be worshiped?”

I mean, like, he was your dad, you might not have known him, but, you know, he was, he was, like, a mortal. Yeah. An exceptional talent. You put it right there on that, he was one of us, and he was the thing where people

wanted to, well, they, if they, if they don't recognize the fact, you know, they say, "Oh, he was from another world, from another planet." Like, now he was from North Carolina, you know, he's as human as all of us, but he represents the highest, the heights and possibilities of human achievement. He's still doing this as a human being.

So, I want to play another recording by your father, and this record, the album is titled "Essension." And here's my story behind it.

So, first of all, this is one of the most radical albums in jazz history, a turning

point in free jazz. It's also one of the first jazz albums I bought. Wow. Yeah. I was living in Brooklyn, and I was on a summer break from, from out of town college,

and I was working on Wall Street as a typist. Wow. But I had just started listening to jazz, and I wanted to buy jazz albums, but I hardly had any money. So I was working on Wall Street, and it was near J&R Records, which was a great record

store. So on the launch, I sometimes go to the record store and look for like discounted records. And I knew Coltrane's name, I didn't really know his music at the time, and I saw her sentient. So, I bought it.

It must have been like on sale, I don't know. But I got home, I put the needle down on the vinyl recording, because that's all there was, was a vinyl, and this is what I heard. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]

So I have to say, the more I listen to that, the more I hear patterns, and get a sense of cohesion.

“But when I first put that on, I thought, what is this?”

[LAUGHTER] And I didn't know it to make of it, where the musicians expressing anger, was it called a sentient as an Christ ascending, or as the souls of the dead ascending? Is it expressing existential pain where the musicians' high, was it a bad trip, or a good trip?

And I was afraid to listen to it, I myself, I thought, who knows, what the hell are you doing? Yeah. Where the end up? Yeah.

What did you hear the first time you heard this?

Do you remember?

“Oh, well, yes, I think what you experienced, I think it's probably what most people”

experienced when they first hear that music, what is this, and what's going on? Maybe the second feeling is like, yeah, it's actually entering my thought in some way. I'm reacting to this, and either positively or negatively, there's something that's stirring there. And it's like diving into cold water, you know what I mean?

For his shockings, it might be initially, you get used to it at some point. And as a gateway record, I mean, not a lot of people choose ascension to start learning about John Coltrane's music, that was quite... No, I just did it because I saw his name, I knew he was important, but one of the things with your father is that, like, for example, like, he took really long solos, and he could

pull it off. But he set this kind of new opening for other people to take really long solos, who didn't

That's true.

“I've sat through many jazz concerts where the editor-in-me kept thinking, like, you could”

cut this down from, like, 10 minutes to, and it would have been fine. Yes, yes, not everyone can go on that journey and take the audience and listen along with them, and continue to explore and expand, you know, but the great, great improvisers, the great solos, the great visionaries and music, could, and John Coltrane, clearly, was one of those types of creators and improvisers.

There's a very famous recording from a club called The Half-Node that was on Spring in Brune here in Manhattan, from 1965, John played a 27-minute saxophone solo, and throughout

he never repeats himself.

He's building from one idea to the next and one motive to the next and expanding these motives and ideas, and the most organic way, you know, that the ear is following the band is following, and things continue to build and grow for 28 minutes, I mean, that's really something. A lot of most musicians don't have 28 seconds worth of new ideas in them, within a solo,

you know. What are your thoughts with your own playing about how long a solo should be other in performance or on record? Yeah, about 28 seconds, I think that's fair. So Elf and Joan, who was in your father's quartet, and was a really brilliant drummer,

“he called you when you were still, I think, still in your teens?”

No, I was still studying, I was still in school, so I was in my early 20s. And he suggested that you join him on the road and perform with his band. What was your response to that? I said no. Because.

Well, I was not ready, I was still learning, I was still in school. I told him I was, I wasn't ready, then I was, you know, I was still studying, he said, well, I want to help you get ready. So I agreed, yeah, I couldn't say no twice to Elf and Joan, it's offered to bring me on the road and let me play in his band, that was life changing for me.

So you didn't feel ready, but when you were playing with him, did you feel like you were holding your own or were you thinking, like, I really am not ready, I shouldn't have agreed to do this? Well, that's the thing, you know, it was an experience of a lifetime. I mean, the first tours that I did in Europe, I mean, the first tour I do with Alvin

Jones was 1991, spring of '91, it was two months, two months of one nighters. And that same year, we came back in the summer and did another month, I mean, to watch him play every night through, listen to him as a bandleader, to see how he conducted himself

on the stage and off the stage, it was, these are the most powerful lessons that I learned

in my, my young life as a musician, you know, whether I was ready to be on this stage or not with him. So when you became a jazz musician and you're playing with Elf and Jones, who's a legend unto himself and who played with your father and your father's quartet and your father

“obviously was a legend, did you feel the pressure of being John Coltrane's son?”

I mean, picking up the saxophone is going to be a certain amount of pressure for anyone, if your last name is Coltrane, yeah, I mean, the pressure can be internal or external, because I did grow it in very much ravi, you know, that was who I was growing up, but too as I picked up the saxophone suddenly, I was John Coltrane's son. So as I kind of was moving through those, that early stage of my life as a musician, you

know, I was very aware that people were aware, you know. Was it hard to figure out who you were as a musician since you had been so steeped in your father's music? Yeah. So like you couldn't really escape it and you didn't, you didn't define yourself like in opposition to your father, like you weren't playing radically different music,

you weren't playing like punk rockers, you know what I mean that would have been like totally different. For the sake of being different now, I mean, the reason why we play is because we hear something that compels us, it drows us in, you know, in John Coltrane's music drew me

in. I mean, I'm not the first to be captivated and compelled by the sound of his saxophone,

a powerful sound putting on a John Coltrane record, you know, you say, what is that?

“And then you say, I want to do that, you know.”

Well, ravi, good luck with all the centennial celebrations, I know it's a lot of planning, good luck with your new book and, you know, thank you for coming on fresh air.

Thank you, Terry. It was again an honor and a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you so

much.

“Ravi Coltrane is a jazz composer and tenor saxophoneist and the son of John and Alice Coltrane.”

He spoke with Terry Gross. Ravi edited the new collection of photos of his late father,

Coltrane, the definitive visual celebration of the legend.

Fresh air weekend is produced by Terry Samadden. Fresh air is executive producer is Sam Brigger,

“our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer this week is Adam Stanishewski.”

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