John Coltrane's funeral

21 July 1967: Number 36 in our series of the 50 key events in the history of Jazz musicThe send-off given to John Coltrane (1926-67) remains the most iconic in jazz history. The venue was St Peter's Lutheran Church in midtown New York, which, in 1960, had appointed Puerto Rican pastor John Garcia Gensel as its special "minister for the jazz community". Coltrane's funeral started with a startling version of "Our Prayer" by Albert Ayler and ended with a similarly incendiary performance from Ornett...

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