COLTRANE, John William

(b. 23 September 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina; d. 17 July 1967 in Huntington, New York), tenor and soprano saxophonist, composer, and band-leader whose powerful tone, extensive technical and theoretical knowledge, and oblique, soul-searching improvisations made him the most influential jazz stylist of the 1960s.

Coltrane was the only child of John Robert Coltrane, a tailor and amateur musician, and Alice Blair Coltrane, a homemaker. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to High Point, North Carolina. Coltrane started playing an E-flat alto horn in 1939, the same year his father died of stomach cancer. He switched to the clarinet before settling on the alto saxophone around 1941. Following his graduation from high school in 1944 Coltrane moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he found work in a sugar refinery and studied at the Ornstein School of Music and the Granoff Studios. In 1945 the navy drafted Coltrane, and he was stationed on the Hawaiian island of Oahu—where, in addition to fulfilling his seaman duties, he played in a dance band, the Melody Masters.

Following his discharge in 1946, Coltrane returned to Philadelphia and toured with Joe Webb and King Kolax from 1946 to 1947. After playing tenor saxophone with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson in 1947 and 1948, he spent the next three years (1949 to 1951) with Dizzy Gillespie, with whom he made his first professional recordings, playing alto and tenor saxophone. He also worked locally in Philadelphia with Jimmy Heath and Howard McGhee, and in nameless rhythm-and-blues bands. After touring with saxophone masters Earl Bostic (from 1952 to 1953) and Johnny Hodges (from 1953 to 1954), Coltrane accelerated to fame as one-fifth of the legendary first Miles Davis quintet (1955 to 1957), of which the other members were pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones.

Coltrane's early style, although highly original, was conversant in the bop lingua franca of the day, having been strongly influenced by saxophonists Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, and Coleman Hawkins. In the late 1950s and early 1960s Coltrane looked outside the boundaries of mainstream jazz for inspiration and became profoundly influenced by the free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman and the Indian classical sitarist Ravi Shankar.

Coltrane claimed to have had a spiritual awakening in early 1957, after which he kicked the addictions to heroin and alcohol that had plagued him while with Davis. From July to December of 1957, six nights a week, Coltrane played in pianist and composer Thelonious Monk's quartet at the Five Spot in New York City. Coltrane's virtuosity grew rapidly through his apprenticeship with Monk, whom he saw as "a musical architect of the highest order." By 1958 Coltrane's powerful cascade of articulated eighth notes reached baroque perfection, inspiring critic Ira Gitler's "sheets of sound" description. Gitler also noted that "the amount of energy [Coltrane] was using could have powered a spaceship." Signing with Atlantic in early 1959, Coltrane recorded the album Giant Steps, an epochal work that set the high-water mark for harmonically complex, physically demanding hard bop. Coltrane rejoined Davis between 1958 and 1960, playing on Davis's comparatively subdued modal jazz masterpiece for Columbia, Kind of Blue (1959).

By all accounts Coltrane practiced constantly, regardless of his surroundings—stopping only to eat, sleep, or briefly acknowledge visitors to the Queens, New York, home he shared with his wife, Juanita ("Naima") Grubbs, whom he married in 1955, and her daughter, Sheila. In May 1960 he debuted his own quartet at the Jazz Gallery in New York City. Within a few months he settled on the lineup of pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Steve Davis, and drummer Elvin Jones. The group recorded that fall for Atlantic, surprising everyone when Coltrane's soprano saxophone–led reworking of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things" became a major hit. Coltrane singlehandedly established the soprano saxophone, which he began playing in 1959, as a modern jazz instrument.

Many of Coltrane's compositions from his eight Atlantic albums became jazz standards—for example, "Equinox," "Cousin Mary," and "Central Park West." In early 1961 he signed with Impulse Records. Shortly thereafter bassist Jimmy Garrison came on board and Coltrane's "classic" quartet lineup was complete. In 1963 Coltrane and his first wife separated, and he began living with Alice McLeod, a jazz pianist; they had three sons and were married after he and Naima divorced in 1966. Coltrane occasionally augmented his quartet with guest musicians, such as the alto saxophonist and bass clarinetist Eric Dolphy, who worked with the group off and on from 1961 to 1963 and was featured on the groundbreaking album Live at the Village Vanguard (1961), which spotlighted Coltrane's sixteen-minute, up-tempo blues workout, "Chasin' the Trane." Garrison's droning, driving bass, Jones's polyrhythms, and Tyner's crashing fourths could provoke a feverish intensity in Coltrane, resulting in lengthy solos some observers compared to a gospel sermon or speaking in tongues but others decried as boring or "anti-jazz." No stranger to adverse criticism, dating from his tenure with Davis, Coltrane mitigated its effects by occasionally recording more mainstream jazz fare, notably Duke Ellington Meets John Coltrane (1962) and his album of ballads with the singer Johnny Hartman (1963). However, starting with the albums Om and A Love Supreme (both 1964), most if not all of Coltrane's subsequent music expressed overtly spiritual themes.

Coltrane continued to act as a mentor to younger musicians, recruiting saxophonists Archie Shepp and Pharaoh Sanders for the 1965 recording of Ascension, a free jazz piece influenced by Ornette Coleman. That year, following a brief period in which Coltrane used Rashied Ali as a second drummer, Jones left the group, complaining of too much avant-garde noise. Tyner was the next to leave; he was replaced by Coltrane's wife, Alice. Garrison stayed, but eventually he too had a falling-out with Coltrane over the direction the music was taking and left following a tour of Japan in 1966.

Coltrane's most abstract and controversial period lasted from 1965 until his death from liver cancer in 1967. (After suffering abdominal pains, he was rushed to the hospital, where he died; those close to him suspected he had been aware of his illness but kept it a secret. Coltrane is buried at Pinelawn Memorial Park in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York.) He became engrossed in the ancient idea, fundamental to certain kinds of non-Western music, that various musical structures correspond to specific emotional states. His late music, which fitted his ingenious harmonic exertions into an abstract or free jazz template and used various vocal-sounding screeches and honks as well as multiphonics (the technique of playing two or three notes at one time), frequently had the effect of "clearing rooms," in Ali's words. Nevertheless, Coltrane attracted a new core of musical followers, among them the minimalist composers La Monte Young and Philip Glass, and rock musicians from the Byrds to Iggy Pop. In the African-American community Coltrane came to be viewed, even by some non-jazz listeners, as a sort of black saint—a living symbol of black accomplishment, spiritual unity, and strength.

For many listeners Coltrane's turbulent phrasing reflected the chaotic social and political atmosphere of the 1960s. He continued to be revered after his death for his profound devotion to music, his peaceful, thoughtful demeanor, and his religious convictions. Even when he stopped swinging in a conventional sense, Coltrane always told a story when he played.

Lewis Porter, John Coltrane: His Life and Music (1998), is the most thorough biography of Coltrane to date, consolidating previous works by J. C. Thomas, Bill Cole, Eric Nisenson, and others, while adding considerable historical research and musicological insight. Carl Woideck, The John Coltrane Companion: Five Decades of Commentary (1998), is an essential compendium based on journalistic and academic sources. Valerie Wilmer, As Serious As Your Life: John Coltrane and Beyond (1977), and Alyn Shipton, A New History of Jazz (2001), are helpful for understanding Coltrane's impact in the 1960s and subsequent decades. An obituary is in the New York Times (18 July 1967). The World According to John Coltrane (1993) is a fascinating video documentary.

Gregory K. Robinson