biography
| name: |
Coltrane, John (William)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1926–67)
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| biography:
| Jazz musician, born in Hamlet, North Carolina, USA. Originally an alto saxophonist, he moved to Philadelphia after graduating from high school, where he had received his first formal training. He played with a local group (1945), then spent part of his military service (1945–6) in a US Navy band stationed in Hawaii. He studied woodwind at the Granoff Studios and the Ornstein School of Music in Philadelphia during the late 1940s. Initially a disciple of Charlie Parker, he played alto and tenor saxophones in a succession of bands led by King Kolax, Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Johnny Hodges during 1947–54. By 1955, when he joined Miles Davis's celebrated quintet, he was playing tenor saxophone exclusively and gaining recognition for his distinctive ‘sheets of sound’ style. He left Davis (1957), began a series of free-lance recordings under his own leadership, and played a formative six-month engagement with Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot in New York. After a period of permanent rehabilitation from drug and alcohol addiction, he rejoined Davis (1958–60) and was deeply influenced by the trumpeter's experiments in modal improvisation. In May 1960, following the critical acclaim of his recording Giant Steps, he began leading his own quartet. Later that year, My Favorite Things, featuring his first use of the soprano saxophone, was a major jazz hit. For the next five years, while his quartet maintained a continual touring schedule in the USA and Europe, his quest for musical self-renewal made him one of the most revered and controversial figures in jazz. He embraced the new generation of free jazz exponents, and his music gradually reflected his interest in Eastern music and philosophy on such recordings as Om, Ascension, and A Love Supreme. He also emerged as the most influential and widely imitated saxophonist in jazz, his intensely emotional attack and dense flow of notes becoming hallmarks of the next generation of saxophone players. He led a variety of ensembles during the last two years of his life, working only sporadically while suffering from the liver cancer that claimed him at age 41. |
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