What Is Spiritual Jazz?

Key points

Spiritual jazz creates a container capacious enough to hold tragedy and ecstasy at the same time.
John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” was the pioneering spiritual jazz album.
Music helps people wrestle with emotions and lends solace that other people are exploring similar paths.

This lineage emerged from John Coltrane's albums such as "A Love Supreme," “Meditations,” and “Om” that functioned as prayers, the sound of someone employing a saxophone the way a monk employs a mantra.