John Coltrane

Part I of Essay
"I've got to keep experimenting. I feel that I'm just beginning. I have part of what I'm looking for in my grasp, but not all.” This phrase, from the liner notes of "My Favorite Things" clearly defines Coltrane's life and his search for the incorporation of his spiri ....

Part II of Essay
.... the Beatles' redefinition of rock from one album to the next. Yet the distance they traveled from conventional hard rock through sitars and Baroque obligatos to Sergeant Pepper psychedelia and the musical shards of Abbey Road seems short by comparison with Coltrane's journey from hard-bop saxist to daring harmonic and modal improviser to dying prophet speaking in tongues. Asked by a Swedish disc jockey in 1960 if he was trying to "play what you hear," he said that he was working off set harmonic devices while experimenting with others of which ....