Biography of John Coltrane

Milestones and strides

23 September 1926 17 July 1967 John William Coltrane, known only as John Coltrane, was born on 23 September 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina, Usa. Is considered the greatest tenor sax alto of jazz history, master of the soprano sax, also, who knew how to revive after decades of tarnish. According to many critical opinions should be considered together with his colleague Charlie Parker of the greatest innovators of music genre invented by African Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Always imitated for style, tone, the dissonance, gave birth to some of the best records in the history of Jazz, from "My Favourite Things" in "A love supreme". Some songs he composed, as the beautiful ballad "Naima", are now part of the classical repertoire of jazz music. Both families of origin of the future Scottish surnames have undeniable sign of their saxophonist, African descent, outcome of Niggers in that market, as is well known, the United Kingdom had its monopoly from Central America up, especially on the East coast of the new world.
His mother's name is Alice Gertrude Blair, and will have a strong influence on him. His father came from a family not particularly well seen in Hamlet, and which only merit to have started his own son to music, albeit in an indirect way. Tailor, amateur violinist himself, dies most likely when little John enrolled in junior high school, where he began playing the alto saxophone and the clarinet, in addition to the standard, without ever putting hopes in music as a means of sustenance future. Will be many years before the star of Coltrane blossom and be recognized universally. The turning point for the young John arrives around 1944, when he moved to Philadelphia to attend the music school Granoff Studios.
To fill with enthusiasm me, during those years, by convincing him that the saxophone would do permanently part of his life, are the musicians Lester Young and Johnny Hodges, including listening to music and fell in love. A year later, he enlisted in the Navy and saxophonist starts to make music their work, playing in some cocktail band from Philadelphia. Returned to civilian life in 1946, is being done in many orchestras, where he learned the sound of Rhythm and blues, a genre that will have great importance for her artistic development. The blues experience involves him until 1948, when he finds himself member of the orchestra that accompanies guest singers of the legendary Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York. In this period, from about 1947 until 1951, John Coltrane touches upon some of the giants of American bebop, sometimes suonandoci together, albeit for short sessions, watching them and listening to them play at the height of their artistic evolutions. Intersects with musicians such as Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, and during 1949-1951 playing for several months with the great trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, at that time one of the few "clean" of American jazz, engaged in the hard and painful struggles to save the best talent ever from the grip of heroin (one for all, the legendary Charlie Parker, victim of those years). Dates back to 1955 the first real hiring Coltrane with a big time. Miles Davis wants with it, in fact, fixed in its formation.
Yet the experience between them, the first, lasts just one year and Davis fire him, telling of a Coltrane as far from a real stylistic definition, immature and devoid of his artistic personality. Seven months after the dismissal, however, in 1956, John Coltrane finds employment at one of the greatest jazz experimentalists of all time, which will be of key importance for its musical maturation: the great Thelonious Monk. ' Trane, as it is dubbed in those years, he plays in fixed Quartet performs at the Five Spot in New York, along with the great pianist, from which he learned by the handful experimentalism, inspired by new and more intricate sounds. The saxophonist, who would in the future defined Monk a "musical architect of the highest order," during that time he traveled daily to the pianist's home, forcing him to teach him all his knowledge in the field of music. It was the turning point for him, also because of the abandonment of the heroin, the drug that hitherto prevented him from concentrating fully on the study of the instrument.
It is the time in which the "sheets of sound", "curtain or slabs of sound," according to the definition that gives someone the newspapers of the time, speaking of their dance music developed by ' Trane in those days. Saxophonist stumbles in compositions by Monk and during the months when he plays at the Five Spot search and find their own way, working on harmonics, prolonging his solo to the end, drawing their legendary "cries" sound, grunts, moans or directly from blues, played years before and repeated during the dizzying session live. When he returns with Miles Davis in 1958, Coltrane is a different musician, accomplished, in full and rapid evolution. Dates back to this period, a legendary recording of "Round midnight", where you can see all the talent in the new ' fibrillation Trane.
From this year it begins its golden moment which, after an unfortunate European tour culminating in 1960 with the publication by the Atlantic of his first, great solo album, "Giant step". The step that makes Coltrane is really gigantic, because the work contains masterpieces of the genre as his "Naima", dedicated to his wife, "Countdown" and "Cousin Mary". In these pieces you can see the turn taken by his improvisation, now paid in the style pioneered by Davis and endorsed by Coltrane: that modal. At the end of that year the saxophonist conquest criticism, colleagues and the public with the first of an endless (and often abusive) series of engravings about his most famous song, "My favourite things", which also marks the debut for him, from the point of view, the soprano saxophone, an instrument dropped quietly after the Eclipse of Sidney Bechett. In the period of "My favourite things" Coltrane gave life to his Quartet, which would sanction the birth of a new way of thinking about be-bop. It binds to the drummer Elvin Jones and the great pianist McCoy Tyner, both soloists for years to come, pulling in which final piece of the equally formidable double bass also Jimmy Garrison.
Throughout the 1961 sax player experiences and influences, and gives rise to some memorable compositions, among which is also another great talent, musician Eric Dolphy. "Africa", "Impressions", "Donna" and "Spiritual" are songs that make for a good idea of the talents of ' Trane, whose evolution during that time goes more and more toward Africa, winking at India and its "traditional" raga. At this time music labels Atlantic and Impulse compete to have his recordings, occasionally freighted with poems autographs, other daughters of particular versions of standard unforgettable. But between 1964 and 1965 John Coltrane he made his masterpiece of African American and Indian ancestry, soul music and mysticism, with the famous album "A love supreme". The eponymous title at work consists of a suite in four parts, which wants to be a real song of praise divine, a prayer, a hymn. The duration, in various versions, is never less than thirty minutes. Is the maximum for his art and subsequent discs that affects, as "Meditations" and "Om" (a clear evocation Brahmanic), however, cannot reach the peaks reached in late 1965.
A few months later also Coltrane takes under itself a great disciple, Pharoah Sanders, who stands with him in live performances and in some short recordings, in a dialectical way, taking with both hands by the master and bringing his music to the extreme, always varying it and making it even more unique. Please note at this time the tour in Japan, very successful, and the sudden cancellation by the saxophonist of his coming in Europe, probably because of his health problems. As for the records, his last engravings date back to February and March of 1967, after a memorable concert with Ornette Coleman in the Village of New York. In this phase it was possible to find, as is evident in the discs published posthumously by titles "Expressions" and "Interstellar space", a change of course nothing short of remarkable in ' Trane, outcome of its ongoing research, such as to speak of a sort of "new Chamber Music", for when absolutely afro-descended. On 17 July 1967, in Huntington, on Long Island, John Coltrane died of liver cancer. Of the four children he had had with Alice Coltrane, Ravi became a popular musician.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.