John Coltrane

John Coltrane , 1926-67, American jazz musician, b. Hamlet, N.C. He began playing tenor saxophone as an adolescent. Coltrane worked with numerous big bands before emerging in the mid-1950s as a major stylist while playing as a sideman with Miles Davis . Originally influenced by Lester Young , Coltrane displayed in his playing a dazzling technical brilliance combined with ardent emotion and eventually a kind of mysticism. His style, which was at once sonorous and spare, was influenced by the rhythms and tonal structure of African and Asian music. Coltrane made a number of influential recordings, among them the modal-jazz classics My Favorite Things (1961) and A Love Supreme (1964), and the later exemplars of free jazz, Ascension and Interstellar Space, his final album. From the late 1950s until his death he was considered the outstanding tenor and soprano saxophonist of the jazz avant-garde, and his music continues to be a strong source of inspiration to jazz and pop musicians.

Bibliography: See biographies by E. Nisenson (1994) and L. Porter (1998); B. Ratliff, Coltrane: The Story of a Sound (2007); discography by Y. Fujioka et al. (1995).

Coltrane, John (1926–1967), jazz saxophonist and leader in the “hard bop” style of the late 1950s and 1960s.Born in Hamlet, North Carolina, Coltrane later moved to Philadelphia, where he became acquainted with rhythm and blues and was influenced by the bop revolution that emerged in jazz during World War II. Playing with Eddie Vinson's band after his release from the navy in 1946, he was convinced by Vinson to change from alto to tenor saxophone. In 1949, Coltrane joined the big band of Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993), but in 1953 he shifted to Johnny Hodges's smaller band. Coltrane first won serious attention and achieved a major stylistic breakthrough when he joined Miles Davis's quintet in 1955. He became the saxophonist in the quartet of Thelonious Monk (1917–1982) two years later, but soon returned to Davis's group. For a time he flirted with the sonorities and subtle lyricism of cool jazz, but he felt a growing need to develop a more personal approach.

In 1960, Coltrane formed his own group with the intent of exploring different jazz sounds. Intent upon moving beyond notes and creating pure sound, he borrowed from African, Indian, and Middle Eastern sources. His tone tended to be hard and harsh and lacked the varied coloration of the bop innovator Charlie Parker. Although Coltrane was not politically a black nationalist, the statement he made did have social implications. Coltrane's playing changed substantially during his lifetime, since his musical search was based on a spiritual quest that persisted until his death.

Bibliography

Cuthbert Ormond Simpkins , Coltrane, 1975.
Eric Nisenson , Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest, 1993.

Ronald L. Davis