John Coltrane

A towering musical figure of the 20th century, saxophonist John Coltrane reset the parameters of jazz during his decade as a leader. At the outset, he was a vigorous practitioner of hard bop, gaining prominence as a sideman for Miles Davis before setting out as a leader in 1957, when he released Coltrane on Prestige and Blue Train on Blue Note. Coltrane quickly expanded his horizons, pioneering a technique critic Ira Gitler dubbed "sheets of sound," consisting of the saxophonist playing a flurry of notes on his tenor within the confines of a few chords. During his last days with Davis, along with his earliest records for Atlantic, Coltrane leaned into this technique, but as he developed his career as a leader in the early '60s, he also turned lyrical. His sweet, fluid soprano sax distinguished My Favorite Things, which helped turn the ...
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