Jazz Articles about John Coltrane

John Coltrane: A Newbies Guide

by Tim Price
December 9, 2004

When John Coltrane died in 1967, he left behind a huge legacy of recorded music. Making sense of it all is an enormous task. Check out our suggestions for six views of Trane's last ten years. With Blue Train , John Coltrane not only firmly established his own voice on the tenor saxophone, but also proved his abilities as a bandleader and composer. The musicians on Blue Train , hand-picked by Coltrane himself, play superbly not only as individuals, which ...

John Coltrane: Traneing In

by Florence Wetzel
November 7, 2004

In August 1957, John Coltrane was at a very interesting point in his career. His apprentice years in big bands long past, he had recently left the seminal Miles Davis quintet and was in the midst of a six-month run with Monk at the Five Spot. At the height of this fertile period, with so much still ahead of him, Coltrane recorded the album Traneing In , accompanied by the illustrious Red Garland Trio. The CD consists of ...

Tommy Flanagan/John Coltrane/Kenny Burrell: The Cats

by David Rickert
September 1, 2004

The Cats are John Coltrane, Kenny Burrell, Tommy Flanagan, and Idrees Sulieman, heavyweights that clearly mark this as a Prestige All-Stars blowing session. However, this 1957 recording is actually a showcase for Flanagan, a rising star in his first major role. None of the tunes are all that challenging, following basic blues formulas that befit the nature of the session, which was probably quickly organized and recorded. But as you might expect this gives the players plenty of opportunities to ...

Circling Om: An Exploration of John Coltrane's Later Works

by Simon Weil
August 6, 2004

Prologue Elvin Jones left John Coltrane's group in January 1966. A couple of months afterwards he declared: “At times I couldn't hear what I was doing--matter of fact, I couldn't hear what anybody was doing. All I could hear was a lot of noise."1 But, shortly after Coltrane's death in July 1967, Jones defended the saxophonist's late music: “Well, of course it's far out, because this is a tremendous mind that's involved, you know. You wouldn't expect ...

John Coltrane: The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording

by Colin Fleming
July 12, 2004

Composed almost entirely of violently shifting textures and a commitment to dissonance that all but blasphemes melody and musical forms, this document of John Coltrane's last recorded concert from April '67 is decidedly horrific, threatening, and appropriately staggering. Having forsaken his famous “sheets of sound" for a new, overly propulsive medium in the mid-sixties, Coltrane's last phase was nearly anti-jazz or, if one wants, almost anti-music. Yet on this recording it is Pharoah Sanders who truly has his ...

John Coltrane: Jazz Revolutionary

by Bob Jacobson
March 4, 2004

Jazz Revolutionary Rachel Stiffler Barron Morgan Reynolds ISBN 1883846579

Barron has packed an amazing amount of information into this small, 112 page book for “young adults" (middle and high schoolers), part of Morgan Reynolds' Masters of Music series. One of the author's chief virtues is that she does not talk down to her readers. She does a great job of explaining jazz, bop, modes and “sheets of sound" on just the right level. She ...

John Coltrane: His Life and Music

by Victor L. Schermer
February 24, 2004

John Coltrane: His Life and Music Lewis Porter Univ of Michigan Press ISBN: 0472101617

This is a great big bear hug of a biography of one of the greatest jazz legends and jazz masters of all time. As with all great and legendary individuals, much has been written about John Coltrane, and it is often difficult to separate the apocryphal from the true. As time passes, myths grow up around the realities- and the ...