Demo · John Coltrane
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New York, USA
Record · 1965
About
John Coltrane (1926–1967) was a saxophonist and composer. He was born in Hamlet, North Carolina, took up the saxophone in Philadelphia, and served in the Navy in Hawaii in 1945 and 1946 before coming home to play in the city’s bands.
He joined Miles Davis’s quintet in 1955 and left it in April 1960. In 1957, after a spiritual awakening that ended his heroin addiction, he played the Five Spot with Thelonious Monk and recorded Blue Train. Giant Steps followed in 1959, and on My Favorite Things he took up the soprano saxophone.
His own quartet, with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones, played from the early 1960s, and from 1961 on Impulse! Records. He wrote A Love Supreme in the summer of 1964 at his house in Dix Hills, on Long Island, and recorded it in one session in December: four parts, Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance and Psalm.
In June 1965 he recorded Ascension with ten other players. That July the quartet played the festival at Antibes and the Salle Pleyel in Paris, and at Antibes performed A Love Supreme in full; a recording of that night survives. He died of liver cancer in 1967, at forty.
This is a demo site, a tribute built to show what a musician’s page on TJP can hold. Its dates are the demo’s own.
Records
A Love Supreme
1965
Ascension
1966
Crescent
1964
My Favorite Things
1961
Giant Steps
1960
Blue Train
1958
Dates
A Love Supreme, in four parts
Village Vanguard, New York
Ascension, for eleven players
Pinède Gould, Juan-les-Pins
The quartet, a Paris evening
Salle Pleyel, Paris
Giant Steps, on the lawn
Fort Adams State Park, Newport
Film
Press
My goal is to live the truly religious life and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there’s no problem because the music is just part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being.
John [Coltrane] was like a visitor to this planet. He came in peace and he left in peace; but during his time here, he kept trying to reach new levels of awareness, of peace, of spirituality.
There was Coltrane with the lights behind him, beatified. He held out his arms and took me in and I wept like a child.
In short, [Coltrane’s] tone is beautiful because it is functional. In other words, it is always involved in saying something.
The main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe.
Works
The Quartet
McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones: the group that recorded Crescent and A Love Supreme, and played Antibes and Paris in the summer of 1965.
en.wikipedia.org
Ascension
Eleven players (five saxophones, two trumpets, piano, two basses and drums) in one piece of almost forty minutes, recorded on 28 June 1965.
en.wikipedia.org
Amsterdam
The Edison Award for Giant Steps, handed over on the stage of the Concertgebouw on 20 November 1961, and a return two years later.
en.wikipedia.org
Philadelphia
The rowhouse at 1511 North 33rd Street, where he lived from 1952 to 1958 and which stayed a second home for the rest of his life.
en.wikipedia.org
Photographs
Arriving at Schiphol, Amsterdam, 26 October 1963. Hugo van Gelderen / Anefo, Nationaal Archief, CC0
Receiving the Edison Award for Giant Steps, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, 20 November 1961. Dave Brinkman / Anefo, Nationaal Archief, CC0
The stage of the Concertgebouw at the presentation, 20 November 1961. Dave Brinkman / Anefo, Nationaal Archief, CC0
Seaman, U.S. Naval Reserve, 1945. U.S. Naval Reserve photographer, public domain
Framed portraits in the house at 1511 North 33rd Street, Philadelphia. Joseph Elliott, HABS, Library of Congress
The piano in the front room, 1511 North 33rd Street, Philadelphia. Joseph Elliott, HABS, Library of Congress
The house in Dix Hills, Long Island, where he wrote A Love Supreme in 1964. Photo: Muncharelli, CC BY-SA 3.0
McCoy Tyner, the quartet’s pianist, at Jazz Alley, Seattle, 2012. Photo: Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0
Elvin Jones, the quartet’s drummer, 1976. Photo: Tom Marcello, CC BY-SA 2.0
Elsewhere
Contact
Book the quartet, or eleven
Concert halls, festivals, clubs and churches. The quartet travels with its own bass; Ascension asks for a wide stage and a long soundcheck. Tell us the room, the date and the sound you want, and we answer within the week.