I love all of Trane's work! His "experimental" later recordings are wonderful. Love to light up, sit back, and let my mind explore with those extended solos. God bless John Coltrane!
2 months ago | 1
A test of patience of understanding and appreciation when you understand his music.
2 months ago | 0
Words can't describe the impact of John Coltrane on the world, only music!!!!!❤❤❤❤Thank you brother John for all tge the love you showed the world 🌎 thru your musical 🎼 visio
2 months ago (edited) | 1
(( I'm right on the other side of the tracks from dix hills or Huntington. (( Did you know that long organ solo on Light My Fire, The Doors, was based on @Coltrane's take of My Favorite Things? Yes, Ray Manzerek and another Door loved listening to John Coltrane. Me?' 'i fell in love to easily'. And yes, jazz still carries a whole lotta weight, even when light as a Satin Doll!
2 months ago | 1
Trane was going for something in the last years that had nothing to do with pleasing the audience and everything to do with pursuing a particular sound. Who does that these days? Virtually nobody.
2 months ago | 3
Coltrane is one of many missunderstood, envied and even ridiculed musical geniuses who had a command of his instrument, bucked the trend of what was conventional, and played like no one else before him with an unheard freedom of expression. Some people love to hate, some people hate to love.
1 month ago | 0
Personally I never got the ,,spiritual period”… I like the pure technique on saxophone, beautiful tone, clean and fast technique - that’s why I’m much much bigger fan of Michael Brecker and I get Coltrane until 1962…
2 months ago | 2
Jazz Video Guy
John Coltrane died fifty-eight years ago this week on July 17, 1967.
By 1966, John Coltrane had established himself as one of jazz's most innovative voices through his work with Miles Davis and the albums Giant Steps and A Love Supreme. Yet as he ventured deeper into free jazz, he faced the harshest criticism of his career—attacks that would have broken a lesser artist but ultimately revealed his profound artistic conviction.
The turning point came with Ascension (1965), a sprawling 40-minute collective improvisation that abandoned traditional harmonic structures entirely. Where once Coltrane had been praised for his technical mastery and spiritual seeking, critics now accused him of self-indulgence and cacophony. The jazz establishment that had embraced his earlier innovations began turning against him as he pushed into what many considered mere noise.
DownBeat, long a supporter, published reviews reflecting the growing divide. Critics complained his music had become "screaming" and "incoherent," with Martin Williams writing that Coltrane's new direction represented "an all-too-willing surrender to chaos." Personal attacks followed, with reviewers questioning his mental state and suggesting his spiritual searching had devolved into self-absorbed navel-gazing.
The criticism peaked in 1967 with albums Expression and Interstellar Space. These recordings, featuring extended saxophone solos that stretched the instrument's limits, were met with bewilderment and hostility. Critics who had once hailed him as a master now wrote him off as a has-been who had abandoned melody, harmony, and structure for formless experimentation.
Yet Coltrane's response revealed his true artistic integrity. Rather than retreating to safer territory, he doubled down on his explorations. "I know that there are some people who say I've gone too far," he told journalist Nat Hentoff. "But I can't worry about that. I have to follow what I hear and what I feel."
Coltrane viewed his musical journey as part of a larger spiritual quest. "My music is the spiritual expression of what I am," he explained. "If you don't like it, you don't like me. But I can't change what I am to please other people."
His refusal to compromise his vision, even facing widespread rejection, demonstrated artistic integrity few musicians have matched, establishing him as a model of artistic courage whose uncompromising vision continues to inspire.
2 months ago | [YT] | 92