Coltrane at 100
Coltrane would’ve turned 100 on 9/23
John Coltrane was born on September 23rd, 1926, in Hamlet, North Carolina, and would’ve turned 100 this year. To celebrate, Kissa Kissa has a slate of sixteen Coltrane 100 programming nights on the calendar between now and the end of December.
Of all these nights, the 23rd is going to be particularly special, thanks in part to showcasing a gorgeous new book of Coltrane photography that has just been released by Ten Speed Press. We’ll have copies around the bar to flip through while Trane’s tenor and soprano fills the room — and a few lucky guests will take copies home with them!
His son Ravi edited the book and it shows
Coltrane: The Definitive Visual Celebration of the Legend was released on September 1st by Ten Speed Press. Its 288 pages contain more than 200 photographs, each a peek into the world of jazz’s most revolutionary voice. His son Ravi Coltrane edited it with the care of a son going through the photographs of his late father, a touch that shows throughout the collected images. For fans of Trane’s, there are outtakes from the Ascension cover shoot, candid photographs from the Blue Train sessions, and photographs of him backstage with Alice Coltrane.
There are also essays by figures as diverse as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wayne Coyne, Dev Hynes, Phil Lesh, Julie Mehretu, Carlos Santana, Patti Smith, and Ravi Coltrane himself. Notably, not one of them is a jazz critic. Instead, a painter, a poet, a basketball player, four musicians from outside the walled garden of jazz, and the man’s son offer their insights — a deliberate decision about the broader world to whom Coltrane’s music now belongs.
Four lenses that defined Coltrane’s mystique
The photographers include Chuck Stewart, Blue Note co-founder Francis Wolff, Jim Marshall, and famed jazz portraitist Jean Pierre Leloir. If you have a picture of Coltrane in your head — any picture, the one on the record you own, the one on the poster — one of these four men most likely made it. Indeed, Coltrane’s face reaches us almost entirely through the eyes of a handful of people who were standing in the corner of the room observing a genius at work or in contemplation.
Session photography in particular is a daunting task for photographers. Available light in a studio can be sparse and inconsistent, you can’t ask anyone to move or to do it again for a second take. The second you become the loudest thing in the room you’ve wrecked the take that everyone came for. Some of the photographs in this book were made under those conditions, turning limitations into catalysts for creativity and inspiration.
Capturing a sideman turning into Coltrane
The images in the collection run from 1954 to 1966 — a twelve-year span reflected in the photos throughout this post. The progression between them illustrates Coltrane’s arc, first as bandmate and sideman through a tender moment shared with his wife and collaborator, Alice Coltrane. The latter catches the couple with just a short year left together before his tragically early passing. Most of what people mean when they say the word Coltrane happens in the gap between those two pictures.
We’re giving away copies of the book
If you join us after the Centennial, we’ll be keeping a copy of the book on the shelf above the bar — always feel free to ask a bartender if you’d like to take in the photographs with a drink in front of you. The remainder of the copies are going home with guests on the night of the 23rd, a parting gift to select people who are in the room for the occasion.
Before then, copies will be out around the listening bar for people to go through between sides, there for your enjoyment.
We’re playing his records all night
A staggering 81 records with John Coltrane as leader sit on our shelves here at Kissa Kissa, out of a collection of more than 5,000 LPs. That’s a lot of Coltrane — and it’s not counting the LPs he appears on as a sideman. That alone speaks volumes about how prolific the saxophonist was over the forty short years of his life. In addition to house copies of our most beloved Trane LPs, we’ll be playing two new Coltrane box sets in their entirety, spanning the same phenomenal years covered in these photographs.
As North America’s first traditional jazz kissa, we’re honored to share Coltrane: The Definitive Visual Celebration of the Legend with you, and to remember one of the most singular voices in music history.
Wednesday, September 23rd
Doors at 5:30 PM. No cover, no ticket. 667 Franklin Avenue, Crown Heights.
Coltrane: The Definitive Visual Celebration of the Legend, Ten Speed Press, published September 1st, 2026. 288 pages, $60.00, ISBN 9781984858399. Buy it from Bookshop.org, Penguin Random House, or wherever you buy books. Or come on the 23rd.
The rest of the Coltrane 100 season is on our upcoming listings.
Come listen
667 Franklin Avenue · Crown Heights, Brooklyn
No cover. Reservations encouraged but not required.
