Scholars have yet to place appropriately John Coltrane's life and music in historical context. Consequently, we understand neither the relationship of Coltrane's innovative work of the 1960s to traditional African American musical expressions, nor the political import of the music he made at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Through the presentation and analysis of newly discovered documents and photographs, this article takes a first step toward such investigations by sketching out Coltrane's family histories and revealing the circumstances of his birth. The study examines Coltrane's ancestral families' strikingly divergent experiences of slavery, and his extended family members' varied responses to segregation. Included also are new details about Coltrane's parents' marriage, their education, and living conditions. In addition, it explores the important role played by Coltrane's maternal grandfather, Rev. William Wilson Blair, whom John Coltrane described in 1958 as the “dominating cat” of his family. The study attempts to shed light on the predicates of John Coltrane's upbringing, political, social, and personal.
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