John Coltrane

Musician

• Born: September 23, 1926
• Birthplace: Hamlet, North Carolina
• Died: July 17, 1967
• Place of death: Huntington, Long Island, New York

Jazz musician

Tenor saxophonist Coltrane was an influential modern jazz musician who combined the tonal, polytonal, and modal traditions of jazz into a unified musical language. He affirmed jazz’s stature as high art and inspired fellow musicians and listeners with his spirituality.

Area of achievement: Music: jazz

Early Life

John William Coltrane (KOHL-trayn) was born September 23, 1926, in Hamlet, North Carolina. He grew up in a musical household; both of his parents played instruments at home. The music in his family’s churches also left a deep impression on him. Coltrane’s maternal grandfather, the ReverendWilliam Blair, was an intellectual who believed in the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance and shared them with his grandson. Coltrane played reed instruments (clarinet and E-flat alto horn) at school in High Point, North Carolina. After hearing the jazz that was quickly becoming popular, he started to play saxophone and practiced diligently. After the deaths of his father and grandfather, however, economic imperatives caused the family to move north. Coltrane’s mother, aunt, and cousin relocated to Philadelphia; he remained in North Carolina to finish high school before following them in 1943. Coltrane enrolled at the Ornstein School of Music in Philadelphia and then enlisted in the Navy in 1945. He was stationed in Hawaii, where he played and recorded with a service band.

In 1946, Coltrane returned to Philadelphia and studied at Granoff Studios. He also began working professionally, and played in many different settings. He once was required to walk on bar counters while playing blues lines. He applied to music the strong work ethic he had learned as a child, and he absorbed everything he could. Coltrane’s career improved when he joined the band of fellow saxophonist Jimmy Heath in 1948. The two musicians, who were close in age, played together frequently and analyzed recordings. They immersed themselves in the technically challenging new bebop idiom. In particular, Charlie Parker, one of the founders of bebop, had set a new standard for virtuosity on the alto saxophone, and the two younger musicians were determined to apply the same demanding standard to the tenor saxophone.

Life’s Work

In 1949, Coltrane and Heath were hired by one of their musical idols, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, to play in his big band. Like Parker before him, Coltrane fell victim to the drug and alcohol addictions that plagued the lives of many jazz musicians during this period. He was developing his own style and sound, which was very active like Parker’s but somewhat more relaxed in tone. Coltrane was hired by trumpeter Miles Davis in 1955 and rose to national prominence as a member of Davis’s group. However, Coltrane’s substance-abuse problems led Davis, who had overcome his own struggle with drugs, to fire him. After this professional setback, Coltrane went through the agonizing process of withdrawal and returned to his music with even greater discipline and strength. Building on his earlier successes with Davis, he was engaged by pianist Thelonious Monk and others.

In 1957, Coltrane started leading his own recordings and adding his own compositions to the jazz standards that he interpreted. His first album, Coltrane, and his second, Blue Train, were recorded that year. He also played on recordings with guitarist Kenny Burrell, pianist Red Garland, and other musicians during this period. His third album, Soultrane, was released in 1958, and a fourth, Lush Life, also was recorded that year. These albums combined Coltrane’s sensitive treatment of slow romantic pieces with hard-driving fast songs in the gospel-inspired“hard bop” style.

In 1958, Coltrane rejoined Davis and recorded two landmark albums, Milestones and Kind of Blue, with him. Coltrane’s active melodic style contrasted ideally with Davis’s sparse, cool solos. In particular, Kind of Blue features the exploration of modes in improvisation. Coltrane was adept at this style of playing, which connected to his earlier experience in gospel and blues and de-emphasized the often frantic shifting of harmonies found in bebop. After this second period with Davis, Coltrane formed his own group in 1960. From this time on, he performed mostly as a leader. His favored instrumentation was a quartet with piano, bass, and drums. For tonal contrast, Coltrane started playing the soprano saxophone, an instrument that had largely been ignored in jazz with the notable exception of Sidney Bechet of the New Orleans school. Coltrane had no problems controlling the intonation of the instrument, which he added to his performances from time to time, while still keeping the tenor as his main instrument. His famous recording of “My Favorite Things,” in which he extended the phrases of the original song in lengthy modal solos, utilized the soprano sax.

While recovering from his drug addiction, Coltrane reaffirmed the religious background of his childhood and broadened it with Islamic concepts learned from his first wife, Juanita Naima Grubb, and his study of Eastern and African spiritual traditions. He respected the traditional, primarily modal music of those cultures as well. On his signature 1964 recording, A Love Supreme, the liner notes included Coltrane’s poetic text indicating that his music was an offering to God. While deeply spiritual, Coltrane did not align himself with any specific religious doctrine, and many listeners responded enthusiastically to his assertions, some treating his performances as religious ceremonies even as his music grew increasingly dissonant. He maintained this spiritual theme until the end of his life, and was joined in some of his final projects by his second wife, pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane.

Coltrane died of liver cancer on July 17, 1967, at the age of forty.

Significance

A virtuoso on the tenor saxophone, Coltrane was a powerful influence on his contemporaries and later generations of musicians. Along with Davis, he helped to introduce the modal style, but he also explored polytonality and even atonality. Coltrane affirmed the spirituality and seriousness of jazz. His second wife, Alice, his son Ravi, and other musicians continued to record music informed and inspired by his style, which continued to influence the development of jazz after Coltrane’s death. Many of his compositions are now jazz standards. African American studies scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Coltrane on his list of One Hundred Greatest African Americans in 2002. In 2007, Coltrane received a special posthumous award from the Pulitzer Prize board.

Bibliography

Cole, Bill. John Coltrane. New York: Da Capo Press, 2001. This biography includes the religious dimension of Coltrane’s life and music and his connections to West African culture.

Kahn, Ashley.“A Love Supreme”: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album. New York: Viking Penguin, 2002. Includes interviews with the musicians and others associated with the recording.

Porter, Lewis. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. Comprehensive biography that emphasizes music and chronology.

Ratliff, Ben. Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Focuses on Coltrane’s musical evolution.