HE WAS PARTICULAR ABOUT HIS EGGS
John Coltrane and his cousin, Mary Alexander, lived together first as children in North Carolina and later as teenagers in Philadelphia for the better part of two decades. Mary and their two mothers, who were sisters, were John Coltrane's immediate family. It was fascinating listening to her remember him, not as an icon, but as a little boy who liked to draw pictures, a member of the junior high football team and to me most of all as someone who was "Particular about his eggs."
-- Joel Dorn
Joel Dorn: Tell me about the early years in North Carolina--your earliest memories of John.
Mary Alexander: He was born in Hamlet on Sept. 23, 1926, and 10 months later to the day, July 23, 1927, I came along. I was born in High Point. John's mother and my mother were sisters. There were only four grandchildren in all. John and I had two female cousins who were old enough to be our parents. We were the babies of the family. Our grandfather was a minister, the Reverend W.W. Blair. He had an honorary doctor of divinity degree. So he was called Doctor. He was instrumental in opening the first black elementary school in High Point. He was very influential in this town. I always felt John was like grandpa.
JD: Was he quiet like John was?
MA: No, not really. Maybe he reminded me of grandpa in a spiritual way.
JD: What kind of shape was the family in financially?
MA: High Point is a very strange place. The affluent and poor people lived right next door to each other. That's the way it was there. One of my teachers lived across the street, so did the dentist. Our next-door neighbor was a doctor; another teacher and the family of another minister also lived on the street. We lived like they lived, but we were poor.
JD: What kind of child was John?
MA: Well, John was basically a good child, but he was mischievous and he always had this dry sense of humor. Basically he was very quiet.
JD: Was there anything about him as a young child that indicated he had an inclination toward music? Or that he was at all artistic?
MA: Well, John could always draw. He had a friend named Brower who liked to write so they used to put books together. John was the illustrator and Brower did the writing.
JD: Did the family think that he was going to be an artist at that point?
MA: No, nobody thought anybody was going to be anything.
JD: Were you encouraged to express yourselves?
MA: Yes. No one said be this or be that. Whatever we wanted to do, they went along with.
JD: Was it a musical household?
MA: Well, John's mom played the piano, not professionally or anything. And my mother sang. John's father played instruments, but he did it to entertain himself within his own bedroom. I didn't think Uncle John brought his violin or his ukulele outside of that bedroom. And we had a big radio in the living room that stayed on all the time. We listened to everything.
JD: Was there any live music in High Point?
MA: They had stage shows, but we had to sit up in the balcony. And there was a park where they had a dance floor. We used to go see Jimmie Lunceford, you know, big bands.
JD: What made everyone leave North Carolina?
MA: There were a lot of deaths. My father and John's father died, and in 1943 I left High Point to live in Newark, New Jersey. John stayed in High Point to graduate from high school. He was 17 and I was 16.
JD: Were you still in touch?
MA: Oh, definitely. We used to write postcards. In fact I kept one of John's postcards for the longest time: "I sure wish y'all would come home. I miss you."
JD: At this stage of the game, was John into music?
MA: Oh, yes.
JD: When did he first start playing?
MA: When he joined the Boy Scout band in our church. Reverend Steele was the head of it. And John had a music teacher in high school named Mrs. Yokely. But after our fathers passed, things changed. Our mothers had to go to work, and my aunt and my mother worked together at a country club. John used to shine shoes there. Our whole thing changed. No one really knew how we lived but we had to rent out our bedrooms and we all slept downstairs. My mother, John, and I all slept in the dining room. John's mother slept upstairs in the bedroom because she had arthritis and needed special attention.
JD: Did you eventually all end up in Philadelphia?
MA: Yes. After high school, John joined his mother, who was in Philly, and my mother and I moved to Philly from Newark. So we were all together again.
JD: Was John involved in music when you got to Philly?
MA: Oh, definitely, yes. He had started to play alto before he had left High Point. Even as a child he would sit at the table and practice all the time. He practiced all the time.
JD: He had discipline that early in the game?
MA: Yes, he would just sit in the dining room and practice.
JD: What kind of music did he like back then?
MA: Oh, he liked the big bands. That's what he first heard, the big bands. And then after a while you couldn't tell him that he wasn't Johnny Hodges.
JD: Was Hodges his first hero?
MA: Yes.
JD: Did John like popular music of the day?
MA: We listened to everything on the radio. We listened to Frank Sinatra, everybody, you name it. He and I would turn the radio up loud so that we could hear it in the kitchen.
JD: When did he first work professionally?
MA: In Philly. He worked with Jimmy Heath. He started working all the clubs on Columbia Avenue. The clubs ran from 9th Street up to 23rd. He played everything -- jazz, blues, whatever.
JD: Did he have any jobs other than being a musician?
MA: He didn't want any other jobs. The only reason he got a job was to stay out of the service. And he was interested in clothes at this time. He had real good taste in clothes. Any money he got he would take and buy clothes.
JD: Who were some of his musical friends in Philly?
MA: Jimmy Heath, Johnny Coles, Cal Massey, Bill Barron, and Bill Carney. All the Philly guys. And Specs Wright.
JD: Was Dizzy still in Philly at that time?
MA: No, Dizzy was gone.
JD: Let's get back to the service. When did John go into the Navy?
MA: He got drafted. He was only in for a year and he got to play with the Navy band. He was stationed in Hawaii and we used to worry about him.
JD: I remember reading one time that John liked to play football.
MA: He did, but he got hurt.
JD: Was he a good athlete?
MA: No, but he liked to play. You see, all the uniforms were hand-me-downs from the white schools. So were our schoolbooks. John didn't like that at all. Every time he opened a book that was from the white school it just got to him. It bothered him about the uniforms. But the thing about the books bothered him the most.
JD: What was the first name band that Trane worked with?
MA: I don't remember the order but he worked with Bull Moose Jackson and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson.
JD:
Was there any point at which the family knew that John Coltrane was on his way to someplace special? MA: After it happened. We never looked at John as a genius, he was John. We all just lived in those two rooms and he would just sit there all the time and practice and smoke cigarettes. He would sit at my vanity and look at himself in the mirror playing his horn. We were used to his practicing but the neighbors weren't. When they complained, the minister of the church we attended gave John a key to the church. He could go there anytime he wanted and practice.
JD:
Did his personality stay constant through the years? MA: He was the sweetest guy in the world. And even with all the things that he went through, he was still the sweetest guy in the world. When there were distractions, he still took care of business.
JD:
Distractions like what -- drugs? MA: Yes, and that's when I knew he was going into something really big. Most people, when you're talking about something like drug addiction, would say "Well, this is going to hold him back" or "This is going to be no good."
But I looked at him then and I knew he was going someplace. JD: Did the whole family know he was involved in drugs?
MA: Well, his first wife and my mother and I knew. But his mother didn't know until much later.
JD: Were you surprised that "the sweetest guy in the world" got involved with drugs and alcohol?
MA: Not really, it was the environment. All those guys were under a lot of pressure. It was a rough life. But they all had talent -- drugs were just part of that scene.
I get disgusted with drug addicts now. They don't have talent, they're just into drugs. JD: Did he talk much about being on the road? What road life was like? Who he hung out with?
MA: No he didn't. He'd say some things sometimes. Like, he didn't like New Orleans. He didn't like to go down there and play because he didn't like the segregation. He didn't like playing for a segregated audience. Other people would say they went to New Orleans and had a ball. John just sat in his hotel room, went to the gig, and then went right back to his room. Later they wanted him to go back and play in High Point, and he just wouldn't go back.
JD: Still upset from when he was a kid?
MA: He just wouldn't go. People down there would always ask me to get John to come down. But he wouldn't go.
JD: Was he interested in anything else besides music?
MA: Yes, eating. He loved to eat.
JD: Did he watch television?
MA: Yeah, he'd watch TV sometimes. But I remember one time that show came on about the talking horse, Mr. Ed. John looked at the TV and said, "Well, I'm not into talking horses today."
JD: Was he a cook?
MA: No. He learned to cook things he wanted, like oatmeal. Or he'd make a big thing of hot chocolate. He was real particular about his eggs. He didn't like any crust on the white part. My mother and aunt would always say, "If that's the way you want them, then you cook 'em."
JD: Let's talk about the song "Cousin Mary." How did you feel when he wrote that song?
MA: I knew how close we were, but I never thought he'd write a tune for me. I was living in New York then, and I came home from work one day and went over to visit John and Naima. And when she opened the door she said, "Mary, guess what? John wrote a tune for you." I said "WHAT?" That was the first time I found out about it. It wasn't called "Cousin Mary" at first. It was some kind of blues or somethin'. But then he renamed it for me.
JD: Are you satisfied with the way John is remembered?
MA: Well, they never appreciate you until you're gone.
JD: But he was really appreciated in his lifetime.
MA: He was, but more so after he died. But I feel people have really shown respect for him. And I feel very good about it.
Mary L. Alexander is the founder and guiding light of the John W. Coltrane Cultural Society, an organization dedicated to preserving the music, legacy, and spirit of John Coltrane.
Kimberly Berry, the program director of WRTI-FM in Philadelphia, arranged a meeting between Lewis Porter, Joel Dorn and Ms. Alexander at the station on March 1, 1995. The two-hour conversation, from which the preceding is excerpted, was recorded by Jennifer Hunter.
divan intervju
odgovor cousin Mary ja jedan redak primer odnosa prema ljudima koji su počeli da konzumiraju horsa.
ali, redak je jer nije svako trane.
