John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane, also known as "Trane", was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and was later at the forefront of free jazz. He led at least fifty recording sessions during his career, and appeared as a sideman on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth23 September 1926
CountryUnited States of America
The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.
I want to be the force which is truly for good.
I've always felt that even though a man was not a Christian, he still has to know the truth some way or another. Or if he was a Christian, he could know the truth. The truth itself doesn't have any name on it to me. And each man has to find this for himself, I think.
Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock 'n' roll band.
We should pray and seek for knowledge which would enable us to portray and project the things we love in music, in a way that might wholly or in some part, be appreciated as having been conceived and composed or performed and presented with dedication and in positive taste
Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.
I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music.
The reason I play so many sounds, maybe it sounds angry, is because I'm trying so many things at one time, you see? I haven't sorted them out. I have a whole bag of things that I'm trying to work through and get the one essential.
Considering the great heritage in music that we have - the work of the giants of the past, the present, and the promise of those who are to come - I feel that we have every reason to face the future optimistically.
Change is inevitable in music - things change.
I'm into scales right now.
Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way--through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems, and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them. I could watch him play and find out the things I wanted to know. Also, I could see a lot of things that I didn't know about at all.
When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.
Keep a thing happenin' all throughout.