posted by Robert J. Carmack – music historian/blogger

I found this quote while researching Ravi Coltrane, and had no idea, our U.S. president is a John Coltrane fan. Famed photographer Jim Marshall took the 1960 picture of Trane.  That picture hangs in the white house with inscription and signature.    

President Barack Obama up close and personal with Jim’s shot of  John Coltrane. The President’s inscription reads:

“To Jim – I’m a big fan of your work … and Coltrane!” 

‘Ambition sometimes gets a little out ahead of you,’ Ravi Coltrane said. He was sitting in his living room in Brooklyn, next to his son’s tiny drum kit, talking about his new album, “Spirit Fiction.”  ‘You start imagining more than you can actually pull off, and you cross that line from possibility into impossibility.’

“On the wall nearby was a framed photo of President Barack Obama standing in the White House gazing at a black-and-white photo of another musician, a saxophonist like Ravi.

‘To Ravi,’ it is inscribed. ‘From a huge fan of your father’s.’ ”   Even Ravi did not know until President Obama sent him this photo.  (shown above)