On Sunday morning, September 15,1963 the Ku Klux Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama killing four young girls, ages 11 to 14. The heinous crime galvanized the Civil Rights Movement, steeling the resolve of its supporters, and forcing the nation to confront its moral culpability.

At the funeral Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a stirring eulogy before 8,000 mourners and a national television audience that included jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Deeply affected by the girls' murder and moved by the power of King's speech, Coltrane composed 'Alabama.' Borrowing King's cadences, Coltrane crafts an arresting tonal piece unmatched in his catalogue for concentration of emotional force.

'Alabama' offers a spare soundscape inhabited by recently deceased drummer Elvin Jones' percussion, Jimmy Garrison's bassline, McCoy Tyner's piano tremolo and Coltrane's searching then searing solo. Compositionally, the composition embodies the very urge to action that the girls' death occasioned; as the piece closes, Jones' drums build to a crescendo, signaling rebirth and renewal. 'Alabama' marks a transition in Coltrane's musical development. Coming a year after he released Ballads, an album of jazz standards, 'Alabama' embraces in parts this traditionalism and the will to swing, while moving toward the spiritually-based experimentalism of his next album, the landmark 'A Love Supreme.' Above all, though, 'Alabama' remains a powerful record of personal and communal catastrophe, a song of pain, remembrance, and transcendence that offers worthy accompaniment to the historic advances of the era.

About the Author

Williard Jenkins is a freelance writer for AOL BlackVoices.