John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music.
Born and raised in North Carolina, Coltrane moved to Philadelphia after high school, where he immersed himself in the local jazz scene, studied music, and served in the Navy toward the end of World War II before making his professional debut in 1945. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes and was one of the players at the forefront of free jazz. He led at least fifty recording sessions and appeared on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk. Over the course of his career, Coltrane's music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension, as exemplified on his most acclaimed album A Love Supreme (1965) and others. Decades after his death, Coltrane remains influential, and he has received numerous posthumous awards, including a special Pulitzer Prize, and he was canonized by the African Orthodox Church.
His second wife was pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane. The couple had three children: John Jr. (1964-1982), a bassist; Ravi (born 1965), a saxophonist; and Oran (born 1967), a saxophonist, guitarist, drummer, and singer.
Coltrane was born in his parents' apartment at 200 Hamlet Avenue in Hamlet, North Carolina, on September 23, 1926. His father was John R. Coltrane and his mother was Alice Blair. He grew up in High Point, North Carolina, and attended William Penn High School. While in high school, Coltrane played clarinet and alto horn in a community band before switching to the saxophone, after being influenced by the likes of Lester Young and Johnny Hodges. Beginning in December 1938, his father, aunt, and grandparents died within a few months of one another, leaving him to be raised by his mother and a close cousin. In June 1943, shortly after graduating from high school, Coltrane and his family moved to Philadelphia, where he got a job at a sugar refinery. In September that year, for his 17th birthday, his mother bought him his first saxophone, an alto. From 1944 to 1945, Coltrane took saxophone lessons at the Ornstein School of Music with Mike Guerra. Between early to mid-1945, he had his first professional work as a musician: a "cocktail lounge trio" with piano and guitar.
An important moment in the progression of Coltrane's musical development occurred on June 5, 1945, when he saw Charlie Parker perform for the first time. In a 1960 DownBeat magazine article, he recalled: "The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes."
To avoid being drafted by the Army, Coltrane enlisted in the Navy on August 6, 1945, the day the first U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. He was trained as an apprentice seaman at Sampson Naval Training Station in upstate New York before he was shipped to Pearl Harbor, where he was stationed at Manana Barracks, the largest posting of African American servicemen in the world. By the time he got to Hawaii in late 1945, the Navy was downsizing. Coltrane's musical talent was recognized and, when he joined the Melody Masters, the base swing band, he became one of the few Navy men to serve as a musician without having been granted musician's rating. Because the Melody Masters was an all-white band, Coltrane was treated as a guest performer to avoid alerting superior officers of his participation in the band. He continued to perform other duties when not playing with the band, including kitchen and security details. By the end of his service, he had assumed a leadership role in the band. His first recordings, an informal session in Hawaii with Navy musicians, occurred on July 13, 1946. He played alto saxophone on a selection of jazz standards and bebop tunes. He was officially discharged from the Navy on August 8, 1946. He was awarded the American Campaign Medal, Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal.
1946–1954: Immediate post-war career
After being discharged from the Navy as a seaman first class in August 1946, Coltrane returned to Philadelphia, where the city's bustling jazz scene offered him many opportunities for both learning and playing. Coltrane used the G.I. Bill to enroll at the Granoff School of Music, where he studied music theory with jazz guitarist and composer Dennis Sandole. He would continue to work under Sandole's tutelage from 1946 into the early 1950s. Coltrane also took saxophone lessons with Matthew Rastelli, a saxophone teacher at Granoff, once a week for about two or three years. However, the lessons stopped when Coltrane's G.I. Bill funds ran out. After touring with King Kolax, he joined a band led by Jimmy Heath, who was introduced to Coltrane's playing by his former Navy buddy, trumpeter William Massey, who had played with Coltrane in the Melody Masters. Although he started on alto saxophone, he switched to playing tenor saxophone in 1947 with Eddie Vinson.
Coltrane called this a time when "a wider area of listening opened up for me. There were many things that people like Hawk [Coleman Hawkins] and Ben [Webster] and Tab Smith were doing in the '40s that I didn't understand, but that I felt emotionally." A significant influence, according to tenor saxophonist Odean Pope, was the Philadelphia pianist, composer, and theorist Hasaan Ibn Ali: "Hasaan was the clue to ... the system that Trane uses. Hasaan was the great influence on Trane's melodic concept." Coltrane became fanatical about practicing and developing his craft, practicing "25 hours a day" according to Jimmy Heath. Heath recalls an incident in a hotel in San Francisco when after a complaint was issued, Coltrane took the horn out of his mouth and practiced fingering for a full hour. Such was his dedication; it was common for him to fall asleep with the horn still in his mouth or practice a single note for hours on end.
Charlie Parker, whom Coltrane had first heard perform before his time in the Navy, became an idol, and the two would occasionally play together in the late 1940s. Coltrane was also a member of groups led by Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Johnny Hodges in the early to mid-1950s.
1955–1957: Miles and Monk period
In 1955, Coltrane was freelancing in Philadelphia while studying with Sandole when he received a call from trumpeter Miles Davis. Davis had been successful in the 1940s, but his reputation and work had been damaged in part by heroin addiction; he was again musically active and about to form a quintet. Coltrane was with this edition of the Davis band, known as the "First Great Quintet", which included Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. They played from October 1955 to April 1957 with a few breaks. During this period Davis released several influential recordings that revealed the first signs of Coltrane's growing ability. This quintet, represented by two marathon recording sessions for Prestige in 1956, resulted in the albums Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin'. The "First Great Quintet" disbanded due in part to Coltrane's heroin addiction.
During the later part of 1957, Coltrane worked with Thelonious Monk at New York's Five Spot Café, and he played in Monk's quartet from July through December 1957. But due to contractual conflicts, Coltrane took part in only one official studio recording session with this group. Coltrane recorded many sessions for Prestige under his own name during this time, but Monk refused to record for his old label. A private recording made by Juanita Naima Coltrane of a late summer 1957 reunion of the group was issued by Blue Note Records as Live at the Five Spot—Discovery! in 1993. A high quality tape of a concert given by this quartet in November 1957 was found later and was released by Blue Note in 2005. Recorded by Voice of America, the performances confirm the group's reputation; the resulting album, Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, is very highly rated.