Dear John

“He had considered creation in its whole extent, and his descriptions are therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagination to unrestrained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were extensive. The characteristick quality of his poem is sublimity. He sometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantick loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but it is his peculiar power to astonish.”

Samuel Johnson on English poet John Milton

What's to be said about John Coltrane? Lewis Porter already put the majority of it in words in his great biography of the legendary tenor player, so for any serious study, one would do best to seek that source out. As it is, this will only provide a few short thoughts about the man and his music.

Coltrane represents the hope of students, not because “Giant Steps” has become the benchmark for the training jazz musician, but because Coltrane moved beyond this piece almost as soon as he put it on record. All contemporary accounts of Coltrane as a young man speak more to his dedication than to his technique: he was in no sense a prodigy. Miles Davis was disappointed to be stuck with Coltrane at the assembly of his First Great Quintet, much preferring the playing of Sonny Rollins. Coltrane's breakthrough into his late period came from intense study and consideration of the music of Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman. While undoubtedly a musical genius, Coltrane's success came more from hard work than natural talent.

Coltrane shows the path from technique to expression. His mastery of Charlie Parker's bebop style allowed to speak simply when he reached his mature style: he borrowed from his own future with the thousands of notes he played with Miles Davis in 1960, leaving only what was necessary for what followed. He showed that one practices scales in order to not play them. The resultant level of personal expression in his music was matched only by Miles Davis in his greatest moments. The music on First Meditations, and Stellar Regions is almost overpoweringly emotional and can be exhausting to listen to. Ultimately, his late music initiated an ultra-romantic period in jazz. He's not too distant from Johannes Brahms in this, who studied the masterworks of Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert in order to transcend the mechanics of music in his highly expressive works. At their best, both discard passage work for vocal melodies, finding their greatest successes in a single note.

Also like Brahms, Coltrane appeared to be completely devoid of humor. If his music misses the beauty of the everyday, it only does so as it strives to speak on the most noble of subjects: a simple look at the titles of the pieces on Meditations confirms this. While Kind of Blue works equally well as foreground or background music, A Love Supreme demands focus and attention. In the end, Coltrane's music garners not fans but disciples. Furthermore, he demands not a passive worship, but an active role in the creative process. A love of Coltrane's music pushes the listener towards the creative. It's here that one runs into the biggest difficulty though, one which few have been able to surpass until this point: following in his footsteps while remaining faithful to its creative spirit.