PDX Jazz is excited to announce a FREE Jazz Conversation Series:
A Love Supreme: Understanding The Message of John Coltrane, a multimedia presentation with Ashley Kahn at Mayo Hunt Recital Hall at the University of Portland
Too often, John Coltrane’s towering legend and enduring influence overshadows his message. This presentation employs music and video excerpts -- focusing on his masterful 1964 recording A Love Supreme (marking its 60th anniversary) to better understand the connection between his music and universal message. How did he weave a spiritual focus into his music? What role did Coltrane envision for himself and his recordings? What was his core message, and how does it continue to influence professional musicians — and not just jazz — today?
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Ashley Kahn
Ashley Kahn is a Grammy-winning American music historian, author, professor and producer. He teaches at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music, co-wrote Carlos Santana’s award-winning autobiography The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light (Little, Brown, 2014), and is a producer of Carlos (2023), the documentary on Carlos Santana (Imagine Documentaries/Sony Pictures Classics. He has written books on two legendary recordings: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis and A Love Supreme by John Coltrane, and one on a legendary record label: The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records. His most recent book is George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters. He also edited Rolling Stone: The Seventies, a 70-essay overview of that pivotal decade.
Kahn, who was recently awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Jazz Journalists Association, broke into the music business as a tour manager and music festival producer, has held a variety of positions in radio, television, and online businesses. As a journalist, his byline has appeared in many publications and websites, including Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The New Statesman, and others, and his writing has garnered four ASCAP/Deems Taylor awards, and three Grammy nominations. In 2015, he was awarded a Grammy for his album notes to the John Coltrane release Offering: Live at Temple University, and in 2017, he received the Robert Palmer-Helen Oakley Dance Award for Excellence in Writing from the Jazz Journalists Association.
Kahn has worked on many music documentaries in a variety of roles: as producer/director—Carlos; Kind of Blue: Made in Heaven for Sony Music (2005)—as a consultant/writer—Netflix’s Chasing Trane 2016) and Stanley Nelson’s documentary on Miles Davis for PBS (2018)—and as on-screen interviewee: PBS’s Soundbreaking: Stories from the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music (2016); BBC’s 1959: The Year That Changed Jazz (2009); and many others.
This event is part of the 2024 Biamp Portland Jazz Festival presented by PDX Jazz