John William Coltrane died 52 years ago, on July 17, 1967. Thus, he is gone about 30% longer than the 40 years he lived. Yet, his stature and impact actually have grown in the half century since his passing. There has never been anyone like him.
It would take a college level course to explain fully why that is; for now, we’ll content ourselves with this post.
The biographical details are available elsewhere, so I’ll just mention the basics. Born on September 23, 1926 in Hamlet, NC, John was raised in High Point, NC. Both of his grandfathers were ministers of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. The year 1940 was traumatic for a thirteen year old John, as he lost his father, maternal grandparents and an uncle within a few months of each other. Immediately upon graduating high school at 16, John followed his mother, who had moved to Philadelphia for better paying work. Happily, it was also a hotbed of music.
Unlike some Jazz stars, Coltrane was not a musical child prodigy. He was a quiet kid, a good student, and very enthused to take on a beaten-up clarinet in school. At 14, he tried an alto sax. Eventually, he was good enough to play in a Navy band, and later to attain gigs on tenor sax with Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Dizzy Gillespie (among others). He was no household name, though, when Miles Davis hired him for his quintet. The year was 1955; Coltrane had just turned 29.
Miles
If Miles heard something special in Coltrane, it probably had something to do with the musical journey Miles had experienced. He emerged as Charlie Parker’s second horn at the age of 19, after Dizzy Gillespie went his separate way. Where Bird and Diz had each been soaring, incendiary virtuosos, Bird and Miles created a classic fire and ice dynamic. Davis presumably saw in young Coltrane another perfect foil for his own understated passion. It certainly worked out that way.
Prestige and then Columbia
The new quintet with an unleashed Coltrane was a sensation based on a series of appearances and albums for the Prestige record label, including Cookin’, Relaxin’, Steamin’, and Workin’. These albums combined compelling versions of ballads, blues, standards, show tunes, and originals. A stellar rhythm section (Red Garland, piano, Paul Chambers, bass, Philly Joe Jones, drums) supported and pushed the horns to expressive heights. It wasn’t long before Coltrane was being mentioned with the first rank of tenors, like Dexter Gordon and the amazing Sonny Rollins.
If asked to name one recording to hear from the years with Miles, almost everyone would say Kind of Blue, understandably. It is probably the biggest selling true Jazz album ever, and with good reason. So, if you’ve never heard it, by all means do yourself the favor. There is an earlier gem not to miss.
When Prestige ran out of gerunds to use as titles for his albums, Miles left for Columbia, where his first record was the storied ‘Round About Midnight. The jewel of the set is Monk’s “‘Round Midnight”. While it is an outstanding quintet’s take on one of Monk’s great compositions, the show-stopper is Coltrane’s solo. His re-imagining of the tune is so strikingly original that people sometimes think of it as being the composition. At this point, it would be surprising to hear a version that does not reference the solo. To listen is to experience the thrilling convergence of virtuosity and creativity that Jazz improvisation can provide.
Monk
The year 1957 was momentous for Coltrane, for at least two reasons. First, he left Miles and the music to kick the heroin habit that afflicted so many musicians of the era. This he did cold turkey. While he was at it, Coltrane also left behind the alcohol he had tried to use as a substitute. Second, when he came back on the scene, John joined Thelonious Monk. Although Trane never stopped learning, the months with Monk seem especially important to his development.
All possibilities regarding space and time in music opened up to him. (The specifics, such as the use of large intervals, would take up another whole post.) The experience could be unsettling. Trane once remarked that there were moments on stage with Monk when he felt like he had “walked into an empty elevator shaft”. For a man with an insatiable appetite for new ideas, sounds and perspectives, though, this was the ultimate graduate school. Recordings of this band had been severely limited, but newly discovered material issued in the last few years, like At Carnegie Hall and Live at the Five Spot, has been superb.
Coltrane rejoined Miles in time to record classics like Milestones and Kind of Blue and to tour. However, a restless Coltrane was ready to lead and to take on a whole new level of innovation.
Taking the Lead: Giant Steps and Favorite Things
Prestige
Prestige got Coltrane into the studio as a session leader with Miles’ rhythm section when the impact he was having on musicians, critics and fans became apparent. The albums that ensued are great examples of what made “hard bop” hard. If you want to hear blues as only master Jazz musicians can do it, I particularly recommended a twelve-minute collaboration of Trane’s tenor with Red Garland’s piano called “By the Numbers” on the album The Last Trane .
Blue Note
Coltrane cut his only album as a leader for Blue Note in September of ‘57, but what an album Blue Train is! In control of the material (four out of the five tracks being his originals) and the musicians, John served notice that something special was unfolding. Then came John Coltrane’s extraordinary stint with Atlantic Records.
Atlantic
First up was the aptly named Giant Steps. Of the seven compositions, all Coltrane’s, six are absolute
classics, likely to be covered to this day by top artists. The other,
“Countdown”, is in some ways the most indicative of innovations to come.
“Naima” is John’s most beloved ballad. The title track remains a piece used by
young saxophonists to determine for themselves whether they have what it takes.
You get the picture.
My first Coltrane album, and one of my first Jazz records,
was My Favorite Things. This was dumb
luck in a way; I bought it because I had heard Elvin Jones was a great drummer
and drummers were my entre to Jazz. Mesmerized on first hearing, I quickly
realized I was hearing something that would change my life. I listened to the
title track after school every day for a year, and never failed to hear
something new. My education as a listener accelerated. I didn’t yet understand
that this piece would take the soprano sax from relative obscurity to
prominence in one shot. I just knew that if music could be this intense and
this beautiful at the same time, it was for me.
Another Atlantic disc, Ole, would probably not make many lists of Coltrane’s greatest. Yet, all he did on it was to (1) give another tour-de-force on the soprano; (2) first record with Eric Dolphy; (3) portray a culture, as he would later with “Africa”, “India”, “Brazilia”, and so forth; and (4) free the bass.
Wait, what was that last one? How did a saxophonist free the bass? Well, Coltrane hired two great bassists, adding Arthur Davis to Reggie Workman, and turned them loose on the title track. Neither is “walking” his bass, or even keeping time as such, for most of the 18 minute piece. Rather, they serve as horn-like voices; their improvised arco duet just before Trane’s second solo is astounding.
There’s more, of course, from the Atlantic years. Had this output been his last and had he never moved on to Impulse! Records, John Coltrane’s spot in any Jazz Hall of Fame would have been secured.
The Quartet
Impulse! Records’ Bob Thiele gave Coltrane unprecedented
leeway in every aspect of producing his albums. Thank God. The result was a
long string of astonishing triumphs.
At the core of the artistic and commercial success – at least until the last year and a half or so – was The Quartet. If Jazz fans speak simply of “The Quartet”, they are referring to Coltrane’s group with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. Each is among the greatest ever on his instrument, but it was as a group that they attained mythic status. Music of such intensity and difficulty required improvisation, musicianship and communication at the highest levels. Both Tyner and Jones have described their interaction as “telepathic”.
By now, the release of every Coltrane album was a major event, eagerly awaited not just by his fans, but by musicians. All wanted to know what would be next, and he never failed to deliver something new and exciting. In fact, following Trane could be bewildering. If asked now which Coltrane record first blew your mind, 50 fans would mention at least 20 different titles. Back when the records were coming out, people could barely absorb what they were hearing before the next one appeared. Then, to see him live was to experience something else entirely. In the time it took to get records in the stores, Coltrane had moved on yet again, even from a brand new album.
One other point about seeing Trane live: the intensity of the performances was legendary. Once the group took off on a piece, they pushed each other to ever greater levels without regard to performance length. Fans hoping to hear My Favorite Things may have gotten their wish, but it bore little resemblance to the Atlantic record. Trane was known to play it for 90 minutes or more, which would drive club owners expecting 60-minute sets crazy. Elvin Jones said there were nights when playing with John was a “near-death experience”. Those lucky enough to have been present and open to such levels of energy and inventiveness heard music they’ll never forget.
Spirituality
In the middle of the great Impulse! albums, between the beautiful Crescent and the compelling Quartet Plays, was A Love Supreme. As a record about which an entire book is written (Ashley Kahn, 2002) and about which I have given 90-minute presentations, this is not the sort of work that lends itself to a quick paragraph. For now, suffice it to say that overstating its impact is very difficult.
Imagine it’s early February of 1965. Like many, you are awaiting the next work of the most exciting, cutting-edge artist around. It turns out to be a nearly perfect four-movement suite, presenting (a) his concept of God and what matters in life and (b) a prayer. No belief system is required to find the music enthralling, but the album has changed many lives. For John, it was the manifestation of a spiritual reawakening that began with his detox in 1957 and would inform the rest of his life.
Beyond
The inexorable trend as Coltrane pushed through every limit to his music was toward the avant-garde (or Energy Music, Free Jazz, the New Thing, etc.). This ultimately led to the gradual demise of the Quartet. Shortly after Rashied Ali joined the group as a second drummer, Elvin left, and McCoy was replaced on piano by John’s wife, Alice Coltrane. Pharaoh Sanders joined the group, bringing his fiery intensity and use of the tenor sax’s upper register to complement the leader’s.
Coltrane may be the only artist who was an essential innovator in two different movements in Jazz. Early on, he took hard bop to its outermost limits with his so-called “sheets of sound”. Many would have been satisfied being the “baddest” tenor in the land, but Trane was just warming up. He took one step at a time freeing his music from unnecessary constraints.
Trane was not the first avant-garde figure in Jazz (see Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman) but ended up arguably its most significant player and proponent. While he did lose some fans and critics at this portion of his career, his meticulous, incremental approach and unmatched musicianship lent credence to Free Jazz as not only a legitimate artistic movement but actually the inevitable next step after bebop.
The second Coltrane record I bought (soon after MFT) was from this last period. Meditations was recorded on November 23, 1965 and released in 1966. It was the last album with The Quartet intact, but with Sanders and Ali added. The album starts at a level of intensity reached by very few recordings in any genre, and builds from there. I listened to it once, and set it aside for two years. That’s how long it took to listen to what had come before so as to be ready for Meditations. It was time well spent.
A Force for Good
Obviously, there is much to admire in the life of John Coltrane as a musician and as a man. Summarizing from this scratching of the surface:
- Openness to people, their beliefs, and their ideas
- Interest in nearly everything – religion, philosophy, mathematics, world culture, and all music – inevitably enriching his music
- Refusal to settle or be satisfied, where there was more to achieve – including a legendary work ethic (e.g. practicing between sets) resulting in mind-boggling virtuosity
- Artistic integrity and fearlessness, whether facing withering criticism or praise
- Confidence with humility and not a hint of arrogance
- Relentless exploration of sound
- Creation of entirely new sounds and vocabularies on both the tenor and soprano saxophones, to the point where master saxophonists built their own iconic careers inspired by specific slivers of Coltrane’s canon
- Innovations in music that we’re still in the process of fully grasping
Consider that Coltrane achieved all this and more in a public career lasting a mere 12 years. It is difficult to conceive what he might have accomplished but for the liver cancer that took him. His last studio album, Expression, especially the piece called “Offering”, portends a next giant step forward as profound as anything before. As it is, he remains a figure of towering impact and significance – and not just in Jazz. As a result, there is a wealth of material to read and music to hear, including an excellent documentary, Chasing Trane (John Scheinfeld, 2017), loaded with commentary of remarkable insight.
In one of his last interviews, with Frank Kofsky in November of 1966, Coltrane said, “I want to be a force for real good…in other words, I know that there are bad forces. I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others, and misery to the world…But I want to be the opposite force, I want to be the force which is truly for good.”
Ken Bossong
© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong
