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b Hamlet nc, 23 Sept 1926; d New York, 17 July 1967). American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He first became known as a soloist with Miles Davis (1955-7, 1958-60) and led his own bands from 1960. His solos were marked by great technical facility, expressed in rapid delivery (as in Giant Steps, 1959), systematic variation of motifs (My Favorite Things, 1960, and A Love Supreme, 1964) and radical developments in timbre. He mostly played the tenor saxophone, but from the early 1960s he also used the soprano instrument. After Charlie Parker he was the most innovatory and widely imitated jazz saxophonist.
Legendary saxophone virtuoso John Coltrane continues to influence modern jazz even from the grave. Coltrane`s death more than two decades ago only enhanced his reputation as an artist who brought whole new dimensions to a constantly innovative musical form. The "sheets of sound" and other bizarre stylistic elements that characterize Coltrane`s jazz sparked heated debate at the time of their composition. Today his work is still either hailed as the very pinnacle of genius or dismissed as flights of monotonous self-indulgence. In an Atlantic retrospective, Edward Strickland calls Coltrane "the lone voice crying not in the wilderness but from some primordial chaos" whose music "evokes not only the jungle but all that existed before the jungle." The critic adds: "Coltrane was attempting to raise jazz from the saloons to the heavens. No jazzman had attempted so overtly to offer his work as a form of religious expression. … In his use of jazz as prayer and meditation Coltrane was beyond all doubt the principal spiritual force in music."
Biography Credit: www.answers.com/topic/john-coltrane?cat=entertainment
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