John Coltrane was born on Sep 23, 1926, in Hamlet, North Carolina. He was a Saxophonist, composer, and a bandleader with an iconic image in jazz in the 1950s and 1960s. It was a golden time for Coltrane when he released albums like Giant Steps, My Favourite Things, A Love Supreme, etc.
John Coltrane was a saxophone player and composed his own music. In the early days of his life, he developed instead in jazz and decided to pursue it as a career. He worked on his style of playing the saxophone for years while working with the likes of Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. His style as a solo player started getting so popular that he stated reinventing his own work. His playing was thrilling, fluid, and visionary that made people come back for more of Coltrane.
Albums and Songs
John Coltrane was under the band of Miles Davis in 1957. Coltrane was a drug addict and was fired twice from the band for his addiction to heroin. When Miles Davis fired Coltrane from the band again, Coltrane decided to finally kick his drug habit and spend more time on saxophone.
He started working with Thelonious Monk for months. During this time he emerged as a bandleader and a solo recording artist. Albums like Blue Train in 1957 and Soultrane in 1958 became popular when Coltrane was only becoming better as a solo artist.
In the 1960s, Coltrane got signed by Atlantic Records and released Giant Steps in 1960. The entire album is his own creation and composition which makes it exceptionally evergreen and pure. Coltrane became more skilled to play with different notes at once, which was known as “sheet of sound” technique.
In the autumn of 1960, John Coltrane led a band with McCoy Tyner as a pianist, Steve Davis on the bass, Elvin Jones as a drummer, and made My Favourite Things. It was released in 1961. Coltrane’s work on this album left people startled whoever listened to it. He rose to stardom for his unique taste in music, while he also received several criticisms for it. In the upcoming years, he released albums like Impressions and Live at Birdland.
In 1965, Carlton released A Love Supreme, which arguably became the most globally acclaimed record from him. The album made it to gold label along with his other work, My Favourite Things. His work was nominated twice for Grammys and is written in the history of jazz forever.
Conclusion
In his last two years of life, Coltrane made a set of materials that he liked to call as avant-garde. His last two recorded albums were Kulu Se Mana and Meditations. John Carlton died at the age of 40 from liver cancer. Considering what the jazz fans have to say, Coltrane left a huge impact on music with his innovative and demanding techniques. Coltrane received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992. His work is a study for the young and upcoming jazz musicians to understand the dynamics and possibilities while composing music.