TRANE-ING MISSION

JAZZ LEGEND John Coltrane was once quoted as saying, "I know that there are evil forces in the world, but I want to be a force for good.

"A force for real good."

Four decades after Coltrane's death, that sentiment is being celebrated by two events in the city that he called home for much of his life. Over Labor Day weekend, the Tranestop Resource Institute will host the second annual John Coltrane Jazz Festival at Awbury Arboretum in Germantown; later in the month, altoist and bandleader Bobby Zankel will premiere his four-part suite, "A Force For Good" at North Philly's Church of the Advocate.

Though timed to coincide with his Sept. 23 birthday, both commemorate the 40th anniversary of his passing (the anniversary of which occurred on July 17 with shamefully less fanfare than Elvis Presley's decade-younger anniversary a month later).

The Tranestop Resource Institute, founded in 1979 by Arnold Boyd, who died suddenly last November, is a "nonprofit organization with a mission to advocate, support and preserve African-American music; in particular, African-American classical music, which is jazz and all its derivatives," according to TRI executive director Rosalind Plummer-Wood.

Besides the festival, the institute hosts a series of community concerts throughout the summer.

"The reason it was named Tranestop," Plummer-Wood continued, "was because Philadelphia was a stop on Trane's spiritual and musical development, and the organization was actually established in honor of the spirituality and the discipline of John Coltrane. Our concerts have an educational thrust, to get the word out to audiences that we might not ordinarily have and turn them on to the spiritual and intellectual benefits of being exposed to jazz."

By holding the higher-profile festival each year, explained Raymond Wood - Plummer-Wood's husband and chairman of the executive board at TRI - Tranestop aims to raise the profile of the organization and of Coltrane's Philadelphia presence.

"We hope that the festival makes known that John Coltrane has more than a mural - he has an existence in Philadelphia at a festival level that is nationally recognized," Wood said.

The location of the festival is especially appropriate, the couple stressed, not just because of the natural setting of the Arboretum but because it sits directly opposite the SEPTA R7 train stop.

This year, the festival is divided into a soul/blues day, headlined by R&B master Jerry "The Ice Man" Butler, and a jazz day headlined by Philly saxophonist Odean Pope and his 12-member Saxophone Choir.

The festival will feature appearances by the Philly Blues Messengers, the Barbara Walker Story, vibraphonist Khan Jamal and the Groovin' High Quintet, saluting Dizzy Gillespie.

Pope knew Coltrane as a young man when both lived in North Philly, and he credits the older saxophonist with landing him his first major gig.

Coltrane was playing a two-week stint with organist Jimmy Smith at the now-defunct Spider Kelly's club on Columbia (now Cecil B. Moore) Avenue when he was invited to join Miles Davis' group. Coltrane recommended the 16-year-old Pope to finish the engagement in his place.

"I guess he thought I was good enough to make the gig in his place," Pope recalled, "but I was really scared to death. But from that point I started getting a little better recognition, and it opened up some doors for me."

Pope declared that despite Coltrane's musical innovations, his influence has been primarily in the discipline which Pope witnessed firsthand.

"He was very consistent, and he always stressed to me how important it was to practice every day," Pope said. "Now, if I don't play every day I feel very let down, and I'll be very grumpy and kind of hard to get along with."

Pope's latest Saxophone Choir CD, "Locked and Loaded" (HalfNote), features his arrangements of two Coltrane tunes, "Central Park West" and "Coltrane Time." For this show, Pope promises a few Coltrane pieces as well as a surprise alongside his own originals.

"That was his forte," Pope said about paying tribute to Coltrane by playing new music. "He was about trying to keep the music new and always trying to bring something new to the table."

Bobby Zankel agrees. While his new piece, "A Force For Good," incorporates several Trane-inspired techniques, the composer said that he uses them in a highly individual way.

"My idea of an homage is to take somebody's way of thinking and to expand on it," Zankel explained. "A great teacher is not one who creates imitators, it's one who creates people who are able to advance their approach. I'm trying to do it humbly, but that's what I'm trying to do: take the spirit of the music and the musical train of thought, to make a play on words, and apply it in a personal way."

Zankel will premiere the work with his big band, the Warriors of the Wonderful Sound, plus guest appearances by Pope, percussionist Mogauwane Mahloele and vocalist Ruth Naomi Floyd, who will recite the poem from the final section of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme."

The event, co-presented by West Philly's Ars Nova Workshop, will take place on Coltrane's birthday at the Church of the Advocate, a center for political activity during the civil rights era, where Coltrane himself played one of his final performances in Philly.

But besides those ties, Zankel said, its mere location in the neighborhood has iconic resonance.

"There's so little music played in North Philadelphia now," Zankel said, "when that was one of the most fertile areas, probably in the whole country, for producing great American musicians. It's unbelievable how many people in the so-called hall of fame, or who have contributed hugely to the history of American culture, came within walking distance of that church."

Zankel also stressed the spiritual influence of Coltrane's music, especially during his own youth. "1967, when I got out of high school," he said, "was an unbelievably turbulent, painful time. People talk about the summer of love, but most people were just going insane from the confusion created by the war. That was really the reality of the time. So the thing that really, in a sense, saved my life was the music that was happening at that time.

"The music from the last period of Trane's life just made me feel that there's a spiritual aspect to life that made me want to create beauty amidst turbulence."

That influence persists in the way that Zankel's Buddhist faith pervades much of his own music.

"He was making these records talking about a love supreme and all these spiritual ideas, and it really felt like he was a priest in a sense - in Buddhism we call it a bodhisattva, someone who's trying to elevate people's lives. When you read the small amount of writing we have in Trane's own words, that was very specifically what he was trying to do.

"He wasn't simply trying to entertain people, he wasn't simply trying to amass a fortune, he wasn't simply trying to be groovy and create ambience for bars," said Zankel. "He was trying to lift people's awareness of the spiritual nature of life and the goodness and potential of humanity. I was a long way from that when I started as a person, but it was really something to aspire to and it always made me feel like that was what music was about." *

Send e-mailto bradys@phillynews.com.

Second annual John Coltrane Jazz Festival, Awbury Arboretum, 800 block of E. Washington Lane, 1-8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, free, 215-438-3178, thetranestop@comcast.net. Bobby Zankel and the Warriors of the Wonderful Sound, Church of the Advocate, 18th and Diamond streets, 4 p.m. Sept. 23, $25, www.arsnovaworkshop.com.