walking upstream…
John Coltrane
photo: gelderen, hugo van / anefo · cc0 ↗John Coltrane
John Coltrane spent barely a decade as a bandleader but reshaped jazz's harmonic and spiritual ambitions in that span, moving from the dense chord-substitution puzzles of Giant Steps (1959) to the modal minimalism of A Love Supreme (1965). He apprenticed in Miles Davis's quintet and, in 1957, Thelonious Monk's group at the Five Spot, before leading his own classic quartet with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones. His final recordings, made alongside younger saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, pushed further into free improvisation and became a founding text of spiritual jazz.
the sound in question
1965
A Love Supreme, Pt. I – AcknowledgementJohn Coltrane
walk the tributaries ↓
Miles Davis1950s · Jazz / Modal jazz
Coltrane spent 1955–57 and 1958–60 as a featured soloist in Miles Davis's groups, including on Kind of Blue, where Davis's spare modal writing on tunes like “So What” pushed Coltrane away from bebop's chord-heavy density and toward the open, vamp-based improvising he later built his classic quartet around.
listen: upstream & here
1959
So WhatMiles Davis
1961
My Favorite ThingsJohn Coltrane
listen forListen to Davis's “So What” — with Coltrane himself soloing on it — next to Coltrane's own “My Favorite Things,” and hear the same trick of hanging an extended improvisation over one or two chords instead of a fast-moving progression.
Charlie Parker1940s · Bebop / Jazz
Coltrane came up during bebop's reign and, like nearly every saxophonist of his generation, absorbed Charlie Parker's harmonic vocabulary and rhythmic daring as a starting point before pushing past it toward his own “sheets of sound.”
listen: upstream & here
1945
Billie's BounceCharlie Parker
1959
Giant StepsJohn Coltrane
listen forCompare Parker's blistering “Billie's Bounce” with Coltrane's “Giant Steps” — the same appetite for cramming maximum harmonic information into a solo is there, just run through a far denser set of chord changes.
Sonny Rollins1950s · Hard bop / Jazz
Rollins and Coltrane were close friends and rivals through the mid-1950s, trading ideas and once sharing a session — 1956's “Tenor Madness” — that is the only recording of the two tenors playing together; Rollins's compositional discipline and blues-rooted swagger were a constant measuring stick for Coltrane as he found his own voice.
listen: upstream & here
1956
St. ThomasSonny Rollins
1959
Mr. P.C.John Coltrane
listen forSet Rollins's calypso-inflected “St. Thomas” against Coltrane's blues “Mr. P.C.” — both take a simple, foot-tapping theme and use it as a launching pad for long, tightly-built improvisation.