About Trane's Gospel :

From Ken Burns' Jazz Documentary:

Music for many people has been an avenue to the spiritual life we all manifest in some fashion or another. With the possible exception of Ellington, no other musician has embraced that spirituality quite so positively, quite so confidently, quite so powerfully as saxophonist John Coltrane. "The thing that's always in John Coltrane," Marsalis told us, "is the lyrical shout of the preacher in the heat and full fury of attempting to transform the congregation." In 1964, Coltrane made one of the best-selling jazz albums of the decade and one of the most influential records of all time: the four-part devotional suite A Love Supreme.

In 1966, someone asked him what his plans were for the next decade.

"To try to become a saint," he replied.


Link: John Coltrane's Biography

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