On this day 100 years ago on Sept 23, 1926 the great ionic musical force, saxophonist, bandleader, composer, John Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North Carolina.
He was raised in a religious family, his father and grandfather both preached, and at early age he was exposed to gospel music. This had a significant influence on his life as he grew into adulthood. When he was 12, his father and grandfather both died, and young Coltrane took to playing the clarinet as a way to escape the sadness around him.
While he was attending William Penn High School in High Point, North Carolina, he played clarinet in local bands and eventually switched to the saxophone.
Coltrane evidently decided that instead of being drafted into the Army, he preferred the Navy, and on August 6, 1945 he enlisted in the US Navy. On his “US Navy Enlisted Personal Qualification Card,” he wrote under the heading, for skills and machines, “Musician-played saxophone and clarinet in orchestras during various musical engagements, both part time and full time.”
He was issued serial number 9851939. He weighed 168 pounds and was 68 inches tall. The military was segregated during the war; therefore, Coltrane was sent to the black section of the Naval Training Center at Sampson in upstate New York. By the time he completed basic training at the end of October, the war was over. He was sent to the Naval Receiving Station in Shoemaker, California, and remained there for a month while he was processed and waited for his duty assignment.
On November 28, 1945, he received orders to report to Manana, Oahu, Hawaii. Manana is where Coltrane served his time while in the Navy. He was assigned to a Navy band, the Melody Masters, and played clarinet and alto saxophone.
While in Hawaii, on March 1, 1946, he was promoted to S1c. Navy bands were used to boast morale, and with the war over the military was downsizing. After serving only one year of his two year enlistment, he was sent to Bainbridge, Maryland where he was discharged on August 11, 1946. Following his discharge from the Navy, he went home to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The post war years in Philadelphia offered a vibrant jazz scene dominated by bebop which Coltrane fully embraced. He also used the GI Bill to take music courses under the instruction of Dennis Sandole, who taught young Coltrane music theory and harmonic technique. Coltrane was not content with just studying music; he became very active on the music scene as a journeyman playing his saxophone whenever he could.
He began to gain a reputation and was not only in demand on the local circuit, but big bands of national prominence recognized his talent. One of those was Dizzy Gillespie, who suggested Coltrane should switch from alto to tenor saxophone.
From 1946 through 1955, Coltrane was in many ways a hired gun waiting for the next gig. It was during this time he developed a heroin habit, which he remained addicted to for six years.
Coltrane’s commitment and dedication to his craft, along with the constant touring, paid off in 1955. That summer the legendary trumpeter, Miles Davis, invited him to New York City. From 1955 to 1959, under the direction of Davis, Coltrane sharpened his skills and played beside Davis which propelled him into the national spot light.
In 1958, Coltrane recorded his own music with his own band, and the result was Blue Train recorded for the famous Blue Note label. This is the recording which showcases Coltrane’s talents as not only a great bandleader but composer as well. The music is hard bop and at the same time the sensitive side of Coltrane appears.
The title track is one of the most recognized music arrangements from the 1960s. Just a year later Coltrane appeared on the Davis masterpiece Kind of Blue, which is considered by many as the definitive jazz record. Kind of Blue has a very slow relaxing quality about it, which pulls the listener in.
That same year Coltrane released the solo recording Giant Steps. Jazz journalist Ira Gitler said the music of John Coltrane was like listening to “sheets of sound.”
By the early 1960s, John Coltrane was one of the most recognized names in all music genres throughout the world.
In 1962, Coltrane formed the classic ‘Coltrane Quartet’ consisting of McCoy Tyner (piano), Elvin Jones (drums), and Jimmy Garrison (bass). The conception of this group also coincides with Coltrane’s music taking on a more and more spiritual angle.
This group recorded some of Coltrane's most famous and encompassing works such as ‘A Love Supreme’. After the classic quartet disbanded, Coltrane pushed further and further outwards, testing the boundaries of improvised music. He would add another saxophonist, Pharoh Sanders, and also frequently collaborated with his second wife, Alice Coltrane.
He helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz. He organized at least 50 recording sessions as a leader during his recording career, and was also a spiritual searcher, a seeker of universal truth, an endlessly curious learner, and to some, literally God incarnate, whose shimmering, joyful music pushed jazz to its limits.
Fascinated by world religions, astrology, and philosophy, he believed that music was a vehicle for a greater good, an opportunity to have a larger impact. He wanted to do more than just entertain. Coltrane’s goal was “to uplift people” and “inspire them to realize more and more their capacities for living meaningful lives.”
Addicted to heroin in the 1950s, he quit cold turkey, and later explained that he had heard the voice of God during his anguishing withdrawal. In 1966, an interviewer in Japan asked Coltrane what he hoped to be in five years, and Coltrane replied, “A saint.” He said “I know that there are bad forces, forces that bring suffering to others and misery to the world. I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good.”
“I believe in all religions. The truth itself doesn’t have any name on it to me, and each man has to find it for himself.” “
"I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music.”
His spiritual journey was interwoven with his investigation of world music, believed in a universal musical structure that transcended ethnic distinctions.
From 1966 until his death in ’67, Coltrane was seen as the point of the spear by a new generation of jazz avant-gardists—a generation more politically charged and socially conscious than those before, and whose music reflected the growing political outrage of the time. Coltrane himself remained a humanist, more in tune with the non-violent philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., than the confrontational attitude of Malcolm X or the Black Panthers. Yet his music was an indelible part of the soundtrack of that turbulent era, and the recordings he made between ’65 and ’67 remain the most controversial of his entire career.
Through the last months of his life, Coltrane continued to push ahead with sessions that swung between tracks that could be grating and intense, and sonic tapestries deeply introspective and calm. The musical seeds that sprouted during the A Love Supreme sessions predicted where Coltrane would go with his music.
His measured key-hopping on “Acknowledgement” presaged a passionate atonality. His chanting was heard again on the album Om. His love of poetry resurfaced on Kulu Se Mama. His hymn-like titles became an unbroken theme—“Dear Lord”, “Welcome”, “The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost”—their meditative sonority reflecting that of A Love Supreme.
In the last year of his life, as Coltrane’s reputation and notoriety reached its highest level, those close to him were aware something was wrong. He was often in pain, suffering from liver cancer, as it was later learned. Yet Coltrane did not let up. He continued to perform and record, only weeks before his passing on July 17, 1967.
The impact on the music scene was seismic; he left behind a stunned community of musicians, as well as his wife Alice, a daughter Michelle and three sons—John Jr., Ravi, and Oran—and a catalogue of recordings from which music continues to be issued and reissued.
Despite passing at the age of just 40 on the 17th of July 1967Coltrane remains one of the most influential and talented musicians in the history of Jazz. After his death, a congregation in San Francisco began worshipping him as God incarnate .In 1969, this congregation became The St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church and was created to "paint the globe with the message of A Love Supreme, and in doing so promote global unity, peace on earth, and knowledge of the one true living God."
The church incorporates Coltrane's music and his lyrics as prayers in its liturgy, specifically using A Love Supreme (1965) as a liturgical text. The church holds weekly “sound baptisms” that focus on Coltrane's later albums, monthly guided meditations, and weekly Masses that include jazz jams.
The church also performs a social function in the community. Around the rise of the Black Panther party, the church began to get politically involved as an activist space and organizer. In addition, in those early 70s years, the church created and expanded its programs for "feeding, clothing and sheltering the poor." Today there seems to be no better time to celebrate the ministry and the message of the Church of John Coltrane.
Coltrane’s total mastery of the tenor and soprano saxophones, the rich harmonic density of his compositions, and his clear projection of emotion enabled him to reconcile technical virtuosity with an often spiritual profundity who bought new innovations to a constantly innovative musical form.
To honor the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane's birth, the Coltrane Estate launched "Coltrane 100," a year-long global celebration.
The milestone features the legendary release of the "Tiberi Tapes" live recordings via Impulse! Records and also highlights a massive schedule of catalog reissues, symphonic performances, and tribute concerts worldwide.
He is considered among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Decades of musicians and fans alike have cited Coltrane as a profoundly inspiring force. Influencing a variety of genres like funk, psychedelic rock (The Doors’ “Light My Fire” was based on Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things”), and pop, he created “a world of sound” that’s still relevant today. And the modern concept of music serving a deeply connective, spiritual purpose exists largely thanks to him. Many artists achieve greatness but very few produce work that is so moving that it’s considered sacred. Amazing to me that he made all the varied records under his own name in just 10 years.
The quality of his music still continues to inspire me, reminding me that the root of the word inspiration is ' Breathing upon.'
"My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being." When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups." - John Coltrane
FOR TRANE ( Breathing upon ) Gone now, but in the shadows of time, his music remains, still gathering attention, saving us from high above, poet of the infinite, seeker, priest, his timbre still flying high, through time and space, releasing a music that testifies to life's force, that recognises the power and spirit of our breath, strong enough still, to give back the power that renews, a sustenance of tenderness, fills days of anxiety, anticipation and separation, with eternal rhythms of presence, knocking on doors, from one border to the next, a moving force of affirmation, releasing a love supreme that forever sings, from his impulse spirit soars, a comet who still blaze across the sky.
Blessed be, John Coltrane.
John Coltrane - Equinox
Love Supreme - John Coltrane
Love Supreme - John Coltrane
