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The Church of Saint John Coltrane
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The Church of Saint John Coltrane

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In San Francisco's Fillmore district, a congregation worships with saxophones instead of hymnals. The film goes inside the Church of Saint John Coltrane, an African Orthodox congregation founded by Bishop Franzo King after a 1965 Coltrane concert left him convinced he'd had a religious experience. Services built around the jazz musician's 1965 album A Love Supreme replace sermons with extended saxophone improvisation, and interviews with King and congregants explain how they came to treat Coltrane's music itself as scripture and sacrament. The film sets this against wider religious decline in the U.S. and Europe, where younger adults are drifting from traditional churches, and treats the Coltrane congregation as one answer to that drift: a faith built from jazz rather than doctrine. Footage of services shows worshippers responding to horn solos the way other congregations respond to hymns. It's a small, specific case study in what belief looks like when it detaches from organized religion but keeps the ritual.