'I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.'
John Coltrane

I recently watched a fine Netflix documentary considering the life and work of saxophonist and composer John Coltrane (‘Chasing Trane’).

Coltrane traveled all the way from bebop to free jazz. He gave us rapid runs and complex chord progressions; cascades of notes forming ‘sheets of sound.’ He embraced experimentation and improvisation; exhibited boundless curiosity and transcendent spirituality. He created ‘Blue Train’, ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘My Favorite Things.’ He was ‘A Love Supreme.’

Coltrane teaches us how to handle the uneven contours of a creative journey; to keep learning, practicing and exploring; to search for a higher purpose.

1. Learn in the Minor Leagues

Coltrane was born in 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina. A quiet only-child, when he was 12 his father, aunt and grandparents died within a few months of each other. 

In 1943 Coltrane’s mother took him to Philadelphia and bought him his first saxophone. He played in high school and community bands, and gained his first professional work in a cocktail lounge trio. At 19 he enlisted in the Navy and played in his base swing band in Hawaii. 

The first recordings of Coltrane from this time do not suggest that he was a particularly special talent. Yet once out of the Navy he set off on the road to learn his trade: working with all kinds of ensembles, playing all kinds of styles.

‘I wanted to find my own way, but I wasn’t ready. There was so much to learn yet… I accepted work from all kinds of groups, even if I didn’t agree with their musical tenets - because I could learn something while making a living. They were, in comparison to baseball, like the Minor Leagues.’

2. Practice Compulsively

In 1945 Coltrane saw Charlie Parker perform. The virtuoso saxophonist became an idol for him, and they played together occasionally in the late 1940s.

‘Charlie Parker did all the things I would like to do and more.’

Parker set the bar high. Coltrane practiced obsessively, ’25 hours a day’. While on tour, a fellow hotel guest complained about the noise. Coltrane simply removed the saxophone from his mouth and carried on playing in silence. He would practice a single note for hours on end and fall asleep with the horn at his side.

‘He was such a compulsive practiser, like he wanted to practise all the time…When you start doing that you get a connection to the instrument… It starts to feel like an extension of yourself.’
Kamasi Washington

3. ‘Be as Original as You Can Be’

From 1955 to 1957 Coltrane played with Miles Davis in the ‘First Great Quintet’. Though Coltrane was still relatively green at this stage, Davis recognised in him a pioneering spirit with an appetite for invention. 

‘Why he picked me, I don’t know. Maybe he saw something in my playing that he hoped would grow. I had this desire, which I think we all have, to be as original as I could be.’

4. Open Yourself Up to a ‘Spiritual Awakening’

The jazz community at that time was plagued with drugs, and in 1955 heroin killed Charlie Parker. When Coltrane himself became addicted, Davis fired him for his unreliability.

Coltrane, determined to kick his habit and clean up, locked himself in his room and went cold turkey. He emerged, through phenomenal strength of will, with a clear head and a fierce commitment to his music.

‘When I stopped drinking and all that other stuff, it helped me in all kinds of ways. I was able to play better right then. I could play better and think better. Everything.’

Above all Coltrane now had a luminous spirituality.

‘During the year 1957 I experienced by the grace of God a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time in gratitude I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music.’

5. ‘Tune Yourself’

Once clean, Coltrane worked with Thelonius Monk and recorded a number of albums under his own name, including ‘Blue Train.’

‘I just started to do what I wanted.’

By 1958 Coltrane was back with Miles Davis’ group, and he participated in the recording of the classic ‘Kind of Blue.’ Davis was a brooding presence, but he gave Coltrane space to express himself. On one occasion Davis challenged Coltrane.

‘Why you play so much?’
‘I can’t find a good place to stop.’

In 1959 Coltrane recorded the album ‘Giant Steps,’ which contained only his own compositions and demonstrated his growing self-confidence. 

‘Writing has always been a secondary thing for me, but I find that lately I’m spending more and more time at it. I’m trying to tune myself, to look to myself and to nature and to other sounds in music, and interpret things I feel there.’

6. ‘Keep Experimenting’

Next Coltrane formed his own quartet, and in 1961 the album ‘My Favorite Things’ was a major hit. It incorporated elements of Indian music, modal and free jazz. 

‘I’ve got to keep experimenting. I feel that I’m just beginning. I have a part of what I’m looking for in my grasp, but not all. I like Eastern music, Africa, Spain, Scotland, India or China. It’s that universal side of music which interests and draws me. And that’s where I want to go.’

7. ‘Have Great Confidence in One Another’

Coltrane worked with a number of different musicians in this period, and eventually settled on his ‘Classic Quartet’: with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.

‘I’m very lucky. I work with very fine musicians. They’re very inventive. I don’t have to tell anybody what to do. We have a great confidence in one another. That’s essential. They’re with me in always wanting the band to move into new areas. We don’t believe in standing still.’

Tyner bears witness to the Quartet’s team spirit.

‘We were like brothers. We were there for a reason, which was to create beautiful music…We were committed.’

8. Resist All Categorisation

Coltrane shut himself away in a room above a garage at his home in Long Island. He emerged ‘like Moses from the mountaintop’ with a fully formed masterpiece.

‘It’s the first time I have everything ready. I’ve completed the project. I know exactly what I’m going to do in the studio.’

Released in early 1965, ‘A Love Supreme’ was a four-part suite expressing the purity of Coltrane’s faith and love of life.

‘I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe. That’s what music is to me. It’s just another way of saying: this is a big, beautiful universe we live in that’s been given to us, and here’s an example of just how magnificent and encompassing it is.’

By now Coltrane was casting off the shackles of traditional definitions, assumptions and expectations.

‘I myself don’t recognise the word jazz. I mean, we’re sold under the name, but to me the word doesn’t exist. I just feel that I play John Coltrane.’

9. ‘Have No Fear’

Coltrane expanded his band to a quintet: with Pharaoh Sanders on tenor saxophone, his second wife Alice Coltrane on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Rashied Ali on drums. He determined to push on again.

'Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts. You play all 12 notes in your solo anyway.’

When touring, numbers would last up to an hour and include 15-minute solos. Some critics and audience members were confused by this ‘speaking in tongues’, but Coltrane was not deterred.

‘I have no fear about my music being too way out. My goal remains the same. And that is to uplift people as much as I can, to inspire them to realise more and more of their capacities for leading meaningful lives. Because there certainly is meaningful life.’

10 ‘Keep on Cleaning the Mirror’

Coltrane was both mystical and intellectual. He believed his music should articulate raw, unfiltered thought, pure emotion and true feelings; and that in so doing we could all learn about ourselves. This required the artist to maintain ongoing self-discipline: ‘to keep on cleaning the mirror.’

'There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we've discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give to those who listen the essence, the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.’

11. ‘Be the Force Which Is Truly Good’

Coltrane died tragically young, of liver cancer, at the age of 40 in 1967.

By the end of his spiritual journey his music had become an articulation of his true self, drawing from deep inside his soul.

'You can play a shoestring if you're sincere.’

Coltrane encouraged us to think of life and nature as beautiful and precious; to dedicate ourselves to purity of expression. He wanted us to be a force for good in the world.

'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. I know that there are bad forces. I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world. But I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good.’

Time for a festive break.
Have a restful Christmas. 
Next post will be on Thursday 7 January 2021.
See you on the other side, I hope.

'Oh my thoughts, I
Return to summer time.
When I kissed your ankle,
I kissed you through the night.
All my gifts I gave everything to you.
Your strange imagination
You threw it all away.
Now my heart is
Returned to sister winter
Now my heart is
As cold as ice

All my friends, I
Apologise, apologise.
All my friends, I've
Returned to sister winter.
And my friends, I've
Returned to wish you all the best.
And my friends, I've
Returned to wish you a Happy Christmas.’

Sufjan Stevens,'Sister Winter'

No. 311