Biography of John Coltrane

Coltrane was born in North Carolina in September 23, 1926. He died in July 17, 1967.

He had 3 children with his second wife Alice Coltrane. His wife and all his children were musicians.

Coltrane's father was himself a amateur musician and gave him the love of music. Coltrane studied clarinet and saxophone when he was young and later studied at the Ornstein School of Music and Granoff Studios in Philadelphia. After playing for the Army, he started playing in nightclubs. In the '50s he began recording with proeminent artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Hodges and Earl Bolstic. Later he played for Miles Davis in many of his albums.

His music

Coltrane was a revolutionary musician in many aspects. He tooks many concepts and pushed it much further. For instance he used a known concept of using 3 tonal centers in a piece and instead of using tonic and dominant/sub-dominant keys as seen in all kinds of music since Renaissance, he would use keys a major third appart, making them perfectly symetrical (3 major thirds appart makes a perfect opctave).

He also, especially later in life, explored Free Jazz, which he actually helped develop. He pushed this genre so far that even people who liked Coltrane had a hard time listening to it at some point. While it was chaotic and didn't make sense at all for most people, it was actually well thought of. There always was an inner logic, it was just not so obvious. Many people think he was way ahead of anybody in his own time.