10 questions · Music
John Coltrane was born in 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina, and grew up in High Point. When he was twelve, his father, his grandparents and an aunt all died within a few months. The quiet boy threw himself into music, first on the clarinet, then on the alto saxophone. Near the end of the war he played in a Navy band in Hawaii, and afterwards in rhythm and blues outfits in Philadelphia and with Dizzy Gillespie. His breakthrough, though, was a long time coming. He found his real voice on the tenor saxophone. Miles Davis brought him into his quintet in the mid 1950s, but Coltrane was addicted to heroin and was fired in 1957. He kicked the habit on his own, and later wrote that in that year he had experienced a spiritual awakening. For months afterwards he shared the stage of the Five Spot in New York with Thelonious Monk, who taught him to think about harmony in a new way. Out of that grew the 1960 title track “Giant Steps”, whose breakneck chord changes are still a rite of passage for young jazz players. The same album holds the tender ballad “Naima”, named after his first wife. On the soprano saxophone he turned the show tune “My Favorite Things” into a hypnotic meditation in 1961. With McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and the drummer Elvin Jones he formed his classic quartet, which in December 1964 recorded “A Love Supreme” in a single session: a suite in four parts that Coltrane meant as an offering of thanks to God. Later his second wife Alice Coltrane took over the piano from Tyner, and the music grew freer and wilder. Coltrane died of liver cancer in 1967, only forty years old. In San Francisco there is still a church that venerates him as a saint and plays his music in its services.
Practise for freePurFact brings every card back right before you would forget it. That's how knowledge sticks.
Tenor saxophone
From 1960 he also played the soprano saxophone, which hardly anyone used in modern jazz at the time.
💡 Did you know? As a boy he had started on the clarinet and the alto saxophone.
A Love Supreme
The quartet recorded the suite in a single session; its four parts are Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance and Psalm.
💡 Did you know? In “Psalm” Coltrane plays a prayer printed in the liner notes syllable by syllable on the saxophone.
Giant Steps
The harmony leaps in major thirds between three keys; these are known as the “Coltrane changes”.
💡 Did you know? Even the pianist on the recording, Tommy Flanagan, struggled to keep up in his solo.
Thelonious Monk
Monk taught him to play over unusual harmonies and to draw several notes at once from the saxophone.
💡 Did you know? Coltrane later said he learned more from Monk than anywhere else.
My Favorite Things
He turned Rodgers and Hammerstein’s short waltz into a long, circling improvisation over just two chords.
💡 Did you know? An edited version was played on the radio as a single, and Coltrane performed the tune at almost every concert until his death.
Naima
Coltrane had married Juanita Naima Grubbs in 1955; the calm ballad stands in sharp contrast to the racing title track.
💡 Did you know? He later called “Naima” one of his own favourite compositions.
Alice Coltrane
She replaced McCoy Tyner on piano and carried the spiritual direction of his music forward on her own albums after his death.
💡 Did you know? She later founded an ashram in California and recorded Hindu devotional music.
Elvin Jones
The quartet also included McCoy Tyner on piano and Jimmy Garrison on bass.
💡 Did you know? Jones played so powerfully and in so many layers that he and Coltrane often fought real duels on stage.
Hamlet
He grew up in nearby High Point, where a statue now honours him.
💡 Did you know? His birthplace shares its name with Shakespeare’s Danish prince.
1967
He died of liver cancer in a hospital in Huntington on Long Island.
💡 Did you know? Only months earlier he had recorded “Interstellar Space”, duets with the drummer Rashied Ali alone.
Home · All topics · Legal notice · Privacy · Terms · Contact
