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Coltrane, John William
7 articles on Coltrane, John William
Coltrane, John
Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century
Word Count: 1557 Includes: Bibliography(b. 23 September 1926; d. 17 July 1967), tenor saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. John Coltrane, often called Trane, is considered one of the most influential musicians in the history of jazz, both for his technical influence and for the spiritual nature of his music.John William Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North Carolina, and when he was two months old his parents, John Sr. and Alice, moved to High Point, North Carolina. There Coltrane lived in the home of his maternal grandparents. His grandfather, the Reverend William Wilson Blair, was a prominent member of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Coltrane's father played several musical instruments, and at age twelve John joined the band of the Boy Scout troop of the church, first playing E-flat alto horn and then clarinet.While ...
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Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 2434 Includes: Bibliography1926–1967
American jazz saxophonist, a stylistic and compositional innovator who was widely recognized as the leader of the free jazz avant-garde movement of the 1960s. John Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North Carolina, but his family moved to a lower-middle-class neighborhood in High Point, North Carolina, shortly after John was born. The Coltranes lived within an extended family headed by Reverend William Blair, John's maternal grandfather, and they followed him to High Point when he accepted a pastorate there. John's father was a tailor and an amateur musician who sang and played the ukulele for his own enjoyment. His mother Alice Coltrane(not to be confused with Coltrane's second wife of the same name) was a seamstress who also sang and played piano in her father's gospel choir and at one point ...
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Source: African American National Biography
(23 Sept. 1926–17 July 1967), musician, composer, and bandleader, was born in Hamlet, North Carolina, the son of John Robert Coltrane, a tailor and amateur musician, and Alice Gertrude Blair. A few months after John's birth, the Coltranes moved to nearby High Point to live with his maternal grandfather, the Reverend William Blair. Alice, who had studied music at Livingstone College, accompanied her father's choir on piano. The young Coltrane grew up in a secure middle-class environment in which both religion and music were highly valued. At age twelve he began studying alto horn, then the clarinet, and joined the High Point Community Band. From the outset, Coltrane practiced constantly, a pattern that he sustained throughout his life. By 1942he was playing clarinet and alto saxophone in his ...
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Source: American National Biography Online
Word Count: 1593 Includes: Bibliographyjazz saxophonist and composer, was born John William Coltrane in Hamlet, North Carolina, the son of John Robert Coltrane, a tailor, and Alice Blair. Coltrane grew up in the High Point, North Carolina, home of his maternal grandfather, the Rev. William Blair, a distinguished figure in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church. Coltrane’s mother studied music in college, and his father was a country violinist; at age twelve Coltrane began to play the E-flat horn, then the clarinet in a community band, and he immersed himself in practice and study. In high school he discovered jazz and turned to the alto saxophone, influenced by ...
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Source: The Oxford Companion to United States History
Word Count: 335(1926–1967), jazz saxophonist and leader in the “hard bop” style of the late 1950s and 1960s. Born in Hamlet, North Carolina, Coltrane later moved to Philadelphia, where he became acquainted with rhythm and blues and was influenced by the bop revolution that emerged in jazz during World War II. Playing with Eddie Vinson's band after his release from the navy in 1946, he was convinced by Vinson to change from alto to tenor saxophone. In 1949, Coltrane joined the big band of Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993), but in 1953 he shifted to Johnny Hodges's smaller band. Coltrane first won serious attention and achieved a major stylistic breakthrough when he joined Miles Davis's quintet in 1955. He became the saxophonist in the quartet of Thelonious Monk (1917–1982) two years later, but soon returned to Davis's ...
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Source: The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
Word Count: 395(1926–1967), saxophonist, composer, and iconic figure. John Coltrane's immersion in modern jazz took place in bands led by Eddie Vinson, Dizzy Gillespie, and Johnny Hodges. In 1955 he joined the Miles Davis quintet and was soon identified as one of the most talented tenor saxophonists of the era. The story of Coltrane becoming a major African American cultural icon really began, however, in 1957. In that year he underwent a spiritual “conversion” concomitant with his overcoming a drug addiction. A brief but salient collaboration with Thelonius Monk followed and Coltrane was on his way to becoming one of the major innovators in jazz. Associated with the radical improvisatory style called “Free Jazz” (or pejoratively “anti-jazz”), Coltrane's own contribution was sometimes referred to as “sheets of sound,” a lightning fast style of improvisation, with great attention given to melodic freedom. His mid-1960s recordings were increasingly ...
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Source: Grove Music Online
(b. Hamlet, NC, 23 Sept 1926; d. New York, 17 July 1967). American jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He was, after fellow black jazz musician Charlie Parker, the most revolutionary and widely imitated saxophonist in jazz. Coltrane grew up in High Point, North Carolina, where he learnt to play the E♭ alto horn, clarinet and (at about the age of 15) alto saxophone. After moving to Philadelphia, he enrolled at the Ornstein School of Music and the Granoff Studios; service in a navy band in Hawaii (1945–6) interrupted these studies. He played the alto saxophone with the trumpeter King Kolax, then changed to the tenor to work with the alto saxophonist Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson (1947–8). He performed on both instruments while in groups led by the saxophonist Jimmy Heath, the trumpeter Howard McGhee, Dizzy Gillespie, the alto ...
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