Artist: John Coltrane

John William Coltrane 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. 

Working on 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 was canonized by the African Orthodox Church.  

After serving in the Navy at the end of World War II, Coltrane returned to his hometown, Philadelphia, where the city's bustling jazz scene offered him many opportunities to learn and play. 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. Coltrane continued 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 three years, but 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.  Although he started on alto saxophone, he began playing tenor saxophone in 1947 wth 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. Charlie Parker, who Coltrane had first heard perform before his time in the Navy, became an idol, and he and Coltrane would play together occasionally in the late 1940s. He was a member of groups led by Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Johnny Hodges in the early to mid-1950s. 

During the later part of 1957, Coltrane worked with Thelonious Monk at New York's Five Spot Café, and played in Monk's quartet (July–December 1957), but, owing to contractual conflicts, took part in only one official studio recording session with this group.

Coltrane formed his first quartet for live performances in 1960 for an appearance at the Jazz Gallery in New York City. After moving through different personnel, including Steve Kuhn, Pete La Roca, and Billy Higgins, he kept pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Steve Davis, and drummer Elvin Jones. Tyner, a native of Philadelphia, had been a friend of Coltrane for some years, and the two men had an understanding that Tyner would join the band when he felt ready.  My Favorite Things (1961) was the first album recorded by this band. It was Coltrane's first album on soprano saxophone, which he began practicing while with Miles Davis. It was considered an unconventional move because the instrument was more associated with an earlier era of jazz. 

In 1961, Coltrane began pairing Workman with a second bassist, usually Art Davis or Donald Garrett. Garrett recalled playing a tape for Coltrane where "I was playing with another bass player. We were doing some things rhythmically, and Coltrane became excited about the sound. We got the same kind of sound you get from the East Indian water drum. One bass remains in the lower register and is the stabilizing, pulsating thing, while the other bass is free to improvise, like the right hand would be on the drum.

By 1962, Coltrane was moving toward a more harmonically static style that allowed him to expand his improvisations rhythmically, melodically, and motivically. Harmonically complex music was still present, but on-stage Coltrane heavily favored continually reworking his "standards": "Impressions", "My Favorite Things", and "I Want to Talk About You".