Renowned jazz musicians Richard Howell, Frank Martin, Fred Randolph and Deszon Claiborne return to Mill Valley performing the music of John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’. 

For decades after the 1965 release of A Love Supreme, John Coltrane’s sublime meditation on the divine was rarely tackled by fellow jazz musicians, but the four-part suite has become something of a 21st-century standard.

There’s no saxophonist in the Bay Area better equipped to navigate Trane’s ecstatic flights than Richard Howell, an exploratory improviser who infuses every note he plays with the bedrock truth of the blues.

He returns to his home base, Mill Valley’s Throckmorton Theatre, with bassist Fred Randolph, drummer Deszon Claiborne, and pianist Frank Martin, a similarly versatile player who’s performed with the likes of Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Dizzy Gillespie, Al Jarreau, and Sting. – San Francisco Classical Voice

Richard Howell’s roots are deeply embedded in jazz music, the entire Howell household had no other choice than to listen to the wonderful recordings of Count Basie, and the radio was always tuned to the jazz stations.

Richard’s father purchased hundreds of jazz records and would expose his children to the proud accomplishments of what his father referred to as “the music of Africans of North America.” Whatever his father wanted to label it, Richard lived and breathed Jazz daily.

One day Mr. Howell Sr. came home with the music of John Coltrane and handed it to Richard along with his exclusive permission to use the stereo, triggering a long-time love affair …

Enter the music of Duke Pearson, Dexter Gordan, Stanley Turrentine, Roy Haynes, Jazz Crusaders, Charles Toliver, Jackie McClean, Cannonball Adderley, Sony Stitt, Gene Amonds, Gerald Wilson, Roland Kirk, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Horace Silver, Charles Lloyd, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Doug and Jean Carn – all mixed with the God Father of Soul James Brown.

John Coltrane remained a staple for Richard and musical inspiration for many saxophonists worldwide.