John Coltrane: His Life and Music

by Lewis Porter

John Coltrane was a key figure in jazz, a pioneer in world music, and an intensely emotional force whose following continues to grow. This new biography, the first by a professional jazz scholar and performer, presents a huge amount of never-before-published material, including interviews with Coltrane, photos, genealogical documents, and innovative musical analysis that offers a fresh view of Coltrane's genius.

Compiled from scratch with the assistance of dozens of Coltrane's colleagues, friends, and family, John Coltrane: His Life and Music corrects numerous errors from previous biographies. The significant people in Coltrane's life were reinterviewed, yielding new insights; some were interviewed for the first time ever.

The musical analysis, which is accessible to the nonspecialist, makes its own revelations--for example, that some of Coltrane's well-known pieces are based on previously unrecognized sources. The Appendix is the most detailed chronology of Coltrane's performing career ever compiled, listing scores of previously unknown performances from the 1940s and early 1950s.

Coltrane has become a musical inspiration for thousands of fans and musicians and a personal inspiration to as many more. For all of these, Porter's book will become the definitive resource--a reliable guide to the events of Coltrane's life and an insightful look into his musical practices.

". . . well researched, musically knowledgeable, and enormously interesting to read. Porter is a jazz scholar with deep knowledge of the tradition he is studying, both conceptually and technically." --Richard Crawford, University of Michigan

"Lewis Porter is a meticulous person with love and respect for Afro-American classical music. I applaud this definitive study of my friend John Coltrane's life adn achievements." --Jimmy Heath, jazz saxophonist, composer, educator

Lewis Porter is Associate Professor of Music, Rutgers University in Newark. A leading jazz scholar, he is the author of Jazz Readings from a Century of Change and coauthor of Jazz: From Its Origins to the Present. He was a project consultant on The Complete Atlantic Recordings of John Coltrane, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Historical Reissue, and an editor and assisting author of the definitive Coltrane discography by Y. Fujioka.

 

Genres: Music, Jazz, Biography, Nonfiction, History, Art, Biography Memoir

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Jonny Parshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone musically inclined, I was glad to see Mr Porter's use of sheet music and notations to illustrate Coltrane's styles and how they evolved over time. Too many biographers of musicians leave out this essential ingredient. This function engaged my understanding of Coltrane better than without.

On a humorous note, my failing eyes constantly mistook "tenorist" for "terrorist." My impression of Mr Coltrane had never suffered such blows, albeit temporarily. It is better we remember him as a master tenorist, and not anything less reputable than that.

[GloriaGloom · Rating 3 out of 5]

E' sempre difficile parlare di Coltrane, ma vale per qualunque maitre a penser della musica popolare moderna del secolo trascorso, senza scivolare nella buccia di banana dell'aggettivazione coatta, nell'inchino e nella riverenza acritica, nella banalità ad ogni costo, ancor più nei testi destinati a una fruzione non specialistica: sarà perchè volenti o nolenti siamo cresciuti crociani, o nel caso dei jazzofili italiani polilliani - quanto bene e quanto male ha fatto il salomonico avvocato milanese prestato al jazz- o sarà anche che viviamo in un tempo in cui ogni banalità si fa regola (prima banalità), in cui il jazz è morto (seconda banalità), e in una cultura in cui un approccio musicologico moderno(alla Middleton, il suo "Studiare la popoular music" - ed. feltrinelli - dovrebbe, a mio parere, essere testo obbligato in ogni corso di musica) è sempre guardato con sospetto, ma è davvero difficile entrare nel cuore e nei meccanismi dell'unica, vera, cultura americana, così variegata e al tempo stesso così monolitica e contraddittoria.
Lewis, in questa biografia "didattica", sceglie un approccio ibrido, che se da un lato appare utile e pragmatico dall'altro non è scevro di difetti. Il cuore di questo libro è naturalmente nell'analisi di quasi tutti i pattern coltraniani, quasi tutto il pensiero musicale teorico di Coltrane viene analizato in modo puntuale, è un piacere seguire le analisi di Lewis ascoltando contemporaneamente e cronologicamente l'enorme corpus discografico del sassofonista isolandone i nodi semantici, per comprenderne le origini, le innovazioni, le stratificazioni. Qua e là qualche risibile sbavatura più che altro dovuta alla inevitabile sudditanza culturale verso la musica colta: non bastano dei poliritmi per citare Stravinsky come non basta anticipare il battere per fare di una orchestra sinfonica una big band. La perla del libro, a mio parere, è il capitolo dedicato all'analisi di Interstellar Space, l'album postumo di duetti insieme al suo ultimo batterista - il poliritmo più veloce del west - Rashed Alì, che è uno dei momenti più alti della poetica Coltraniana e forse il suo lascito più importante per tutti quegli avventurieri dell'improvvisazione istantanea che compirono l'ultima grande rivoluzione Copernicana del jazz prima che si suicidasse nell'attuale mainstream. Credo sia l'unico esempio, tradotto in italiano (di analisi di A love Supreme o di Giant Steps ne abbiamo avute a iosa), di un'analisi accurata e puntuale di quelle magnifiche pagine.
Se questo taglio didattico è perfettamente riuscito per molti versi resta però il dubbio di una piccola e ingenua contraddizione. Il jazz è sempre stato, per una sua intrinseca origine e natura, segnato dal rapporto che un popolo (quello afroamericano) ha con il passato e al tempo stesso con il presente, è l'esempio più forte di cultura orale e di trasmissione orale dei suoi saperi. Coltrane è la metafora più ovvia di questa dinamica culturale, così attento alla tradizione e così consapevole al tempo stesso della sua necessaria trasformazione. Lewis ha deciso invece di isolare Coltrane, la sua musica, in una visione astorica, lasciando da parte, in un sottofondo scolorito, le influenze esterne, politiche, sociali, culturali che hanno palesemente segnato l'evoluzione musicale di Coltrane. Dal mio punto di vista, con tutti i limiti del punto di vista personale, avrei preferito che Lewis avesse preso in esame le continue trasformazioni apportate da coltrane ad alcuni suoi cavalli di battaglia, che so, My Favorite Things - non credo esista brano più rimaneggiato nel corso del tempo da un musicista, più paradigmatico per comprendere le dinamiche di un organisimo evolutivo come il jazz- invece di raffreddare il portato coltraniano con degli strumenti classici di analisi musicale. Ma, ripeto, nel terreno scelto da Lewis è un libro perfetto.
I dolori arrivano invece nella parte biografica che sembra appiccicata lì senza molta voglia, non ci sono novità imprescindibili da giustificarla e francamente la scrittura "letteraria" di Lewis è tediosa come poche, con qualche scivolone nella psicologia da giornaletto quando associa l'ossessione di Coltrane per l'esercizio quotidiano allo strumento con il vuoto lasciato dalla scomparsa prematura del padre. Di buono c'è la volontà di descrivere un Coltrane né genio né messia, ma solo un uomo che è arrivato alla sua statura professionale attraverso fatica, sacrificio e duro lavoro. Un vero Eroe Americano, insomma.

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Lewis Porter's "John Coltrane. His Life and Music" is an extraordinarily well-researched book, with meticulous references (571 reference notes spanning 37 pages), and quite detailed chronology of performances and recorded interviews (38 pages). The author is a noted musicologist, an author of several books on jazz greats and jazz history, a professor of music at Rutgers, and an accomplished pianist. The book sets a very high standard for future jazz biographies.

I first heard John Coltrane's music on the radio about 1965, when I was in high school. This strange, intense, and powerful music (it was one of the late-period works) made a huge impression; it was so wonderfully different from the simple, cheap pap of the then Animals or Beatles. But I did not seriously get into Coltrane until the 1980s, and since then I have read several books about his life and music as he is, to me, one of greatest artists who ever lived. Dr. Porter's book is most likely the best, although readers such as myself can only make sense of less than half of the text. Without basic knowledge of music theory one cannot understand the remaining portions of the book, which are dedicated to musicological analysis of Coltrane's works.

There is no point in summarizing the book. It alternates between presenting events from Coltrane's life and discussing the music in chronological order. Curiously, his early life is shown in more detail than the period after 1960, when he gained wide prominence. There are numerous interesting observations in the book, for example that "one can become one of the great musicians of all time and not start off as some kind of prodigy." The chapter about "A Love Supreme", Coltrane's most famous suite, clearly stands out. Perhaps because it validates my belief that "A Love Supreme" is a stunning musical tour de force, comparable in its power and majesty to, say, Bach's "Mass in B minor."

In addition to being about Coltrane's breathtakingly compelling and beautiful music, the book shows John Coltrane the man, profoundly humble, quiet, serious, and deeply spiritual. "I feel I want to be a force for good," he says. World would be so much a better place if more of us followed this simple motto.

If I weren't so completely ignorant of music theory, I would likely rate the book higher.

Four stars.

[David Rullo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately, this book fell a bit flat for my taste. The author's writing style isn't necessarily great, and it certainly isn't the definitive book on Coltrane.

So, where does the biography fail? Porter doesn't do a wonderful job with the biography. Coltrane's early years are covered well and the epilogue does a good job of presenting the legacy; the rest of his life is written with a style I would call fly "overwriting." Why did Coltrane choose the musicians he did and who filtered in and out of the band after the original quartet? What was happening in his life when he wrote Meditations or Living Space? Why did he decide to move from one style to the next? Porter may touch on each of these with a sentence or two (or bypass the question entirely) but he writes nothing of significance about them. He also ignores the artist's spiritual side and the impact it played on his writing.

Porter does spend a lot of time analyzing Coltrane's writing, but even that feels rather superficial. There is a lot of play by play to the writing. Page after page is spent showing a score and then describing exactly what is presented. There's no formal analysis, for example, why this mode with this chord progression, etc.

I've read several Coltrane biographies lately searching for the definitive tome. Sadly, after reading this, I'm still searching.

[Bjorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

***1/2

[Krem Brauð · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read fyrir alla tónlistarnörda

[Moritz Mueller-Freitag · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lewis Porter’s scholarly biography of Coltrane is one of the most authoritative sources of information on the legendary jazz saxophonist. The book is well researched and musically knowledgeable, albeit a little dry in places. Whatever Porter lacks in literary talent he thankfully makes up for in musical acumen. Together with Ben Ratliff’s The Story of a Sound (2007), it is essential reading for Coltrane fans. Here is a summary of the notes I took down:

Early period (1940s and early 1950s): Coltrane practiced constantly and obsessively, both in his formative years and throughout his life, thereby developing an astonishing mastery of his instrument. His ability to concentrate for hours on end was legendary among musicians (“If a woman was standing right in front of him naked, he wouldn’t have even seen her,” Miles Davis wrote in his autobiography. “That’s how much concentration he had when he played.”) Trane also showed an early fascination for music theory and technical matters. His mentor Dennis Sandole introduced him to world music and ultra-chromatic scales in the late 1940s. Interestingly, Coltrane didn’t start off as some kind of musical prodigy; he was a late bloomer and wasn’t seen as a major talent until his thirties (Benny Golson remembers: “Nobody had an idea that he would become the international icon that he turned out to be. Nobody!”). One notable thing about Porter’s biography is that it traces Coltrane’s musical influences by discussing recordings he knew, routines he practiced, and exercise books he studied (which included German violin and harp books). Porter writes: “Coltrane collected materials freely from all sources and began to develop a new kind of jazz style, new in part because it didn’t rely exclusively on traditional jazz materials.”

Miles Davis period (mid- to late-1950s): Coltrane joined the Miles Davis Quintet in late 1955 and stayed intermittently until April 1960. His development as a soloist in Miles’s band is well documented on the many albums released on Prestige Records – such as Miles (1956), Cookin’ (1957), Relaxin’ (1958), Workin’ (1960), and Steamin’ (1961) –, and on Columbia Records – including ‘Round About Midnight (1957), Milestones (1958), and Kind of Blue (1959). For my taste, Porter could be more critical in his discussion of Trane’ solos on some of these early recordings. His mind was very often ahead of the fingers, as Coltrane himself admitted: “there were so many musical conclusions I hadn’t arrived at, that I felt inadequate.” But Porter does a great job covering the seminal year of 1957, when Coltrane quit heroin and alcohol, developed his “sheets of sound” technique, and joined Thelonious Monk for an extended stint at the Five Spot Café in Greenwich Village. Coltrane later reflected: “Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architecture of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way. He gave me complete freedom in my playing.” That same year, Coltrane also began recording as a leader for Prestige and Blue Note Records. His landmark album Blue Train (1957) is one of my all-time favorites.

Kind of Blue & Giant Steps (1959): By the late 1950s, Coltrane had proved that he was not only a gifted improviser but also one of the most original composers in jazz. Porter illustrates that Coltrane’s composing mostly grew out of theoretical concepts or musical problems that he developed on piano before moving on to the tenor. His obsessive exploration of the science and theory of harmony famously culminated in the title track of Giant Steps, which features a cyclic chord pattern that became known as “Coltrane changes.” At around the same time he was recording Giant Steps, Trane was also venturing into modal jazz as a sideman on Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. Stylistically, the title tracks on these two albums are a hemisphere apart. While “Giant Steps” takes a vertical (chord-based) approach to improvisation, shifting its underlying chords every half-measure, “So What” takes a horizontal (melodic) approach, giving each improviser sixteen measures to explore a single scale. Porter writes: “The spring of 1959 was a time of great significance for Coltrane. He was taking tonal harmony as far as it had ever been taken in jazz. But at the same time, Coltrane was working with Davis on simplifying the chords to the point that they were almost eliminated.”

Classic quartet (early 1960s): In 1961, Impulse Records bought out Coltrane’s Atlantic contract and made him financially successful. According to producer Bob Thiele, it was “the best deal any jazz musician had received, except for Davis.” At the same time, Trane formed what became known as the “classic” quartet, consisting of McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. The chapter on how Coltrane built the ideal group around him is one of the strongest of the book. Porter stresses that each musician brought something special to the group’s unique sound: Tyner with spiritual-sounding fourth chord voicings and dramatic pedal points that provided a strong rhythmic foundation; Garrison with his straightforward bass patterns that provided the bedrock of time and melody for the group; and Jones with his amazing physical stamina and polyrhythmic intensity (“Jones implied the basic rhythm in a highly elliptical manner, yet he always swung furiously”). The piano and bass grounded the band, providing a repeated foundation that enabled the extremely active drums and saxophone to fly freely. Coltrane composed more than ever during this period of ceaseless exploration, partly out of necessity: “Writing has always been a secondary thing for me, but I find that lately I am spending more and more time at it, because I can’t find the proper tunes.” My three favorite records from this period are Live at the Village Vanguard (1962), Live at Birdland (1963), and Crescent (1964).

A Love Supreme (1965): Much has been written about the ways in which spirituality drove Coltrane’s music in the 1960s. This religiously-motivated exploration culminated in his best-known and best-selling album, A Love Supreme, which has been certified platinum for one million U.S. sales. Porter uses sheet music and notations to illustrate that the notes of Garrison’s famous bass ostinato form a melodic “cell” that permeates all four movements of the suite. For example, the bass riff is chanted later in the first movement and the work’s unifying cell serves as a building block of Coltrane’s improvisation throughout the piece. Porter’s musical analysis of the suite is quite illuminating. One important take-away is that Coltrane was particularly attentive to the bass as a writer. In fact, some of his best compositions feature a catchy bass ostinato, such as the one in “Acknowledgement” (A Love Supreme) or in “Spiritual” (Live at the Village Vanguard).

Last years (late 1960s): There is little beauty and much that is terrible in Coltrane’s late (free jazz) phase. Porter writes: “Coltrane had been gradually moving away from playing over a steady beat; in his music there would soon be no walking bass, nor a beat you could snap your fingers to.” With every passing month, Coltrane’s playing descended more and more into screeching dissonance until all that was left was a barrage of sound. For many listeners, he sounded like someone screaming through his horn. His audience eventually turned against him and the classic quartet fell apart. Tyner remembers: “At times I couldn’t hear what anybody was doing. All I could hear was a lot of noise.” What was driving Coltrane’s self-mindedness in this late phase? His early death in 1967, at the age of forty, has led musicians and critics to ponder this question extensively. Some, like the drummer Rashied Ali, have speculated that Coltrane was approaching the point where he had done nearly everything there was to do on his instrument: “He exhausted the saxophone. He couldn’t find nothing else to play … he ran out of horn.” Others, like the jazz writer Daniel Berger, believe that Coltrane may have seen the end of his life approaching: “How not to interpret retroactively the madness of his improvisations as panic before death, as a great cry from the precipice, an immense shout before the gods, unknown and mysterious? Did Trane know he was condemned?” Whether it was triggered by exhaustion or by premonition, Coltrane’s late work continues to intimidate many listeners to this day.

Coltrane’s legacy: There is general agreement that Coltrane was a quiet, extremely likable person – even in his darkest days (he developed a heroin addiction in 1948, which he quit cold turkey in 1957). Unfortunately, Porter doesn’t flesh out Coltrane’s character as you would expect from a major biography. We also learn very little about his posthumous legacy, or why he has proved so influential and inspirational with musicians in and out of jazz. Readers who look for answers to these questions are better served with Ratliff’s book. As a jazz fan, I recommend reading both books back to back as they complement each other extremely well.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this after Ben Ratliff's 'Coltrane' which is not a bio but a sort of overview of Coltrane's musical evolution and then his legacy. Both books work well together, but I should have read the Porter bio first.

Porter is meticulous researcher and documenter and there are quite a number of cool and interesting photos and documents reproduced in the book. There is a ton of info in the book and quite a bit of new and newly corrected info. There is a lot of musical analysis throughout, from the earliest beginnings through his latest, most abstract stuff. The analysis throughout was excellent. Also i have never seen anyone analyze his later work musically--and porter does break it down to look at what is going on musically.

Porter starts by tracing the earliest roots of coltranes family in slavery-- i thought this was really intersting stuff. He does a great job with Coltrane's youth and early development as an artist. Throughout there are lots of interviews with family, friends, and other musicians. It was really interesting to me to learn about coltrane's earliest developmet as a sax player.

This is a great reference for John Coltrane info. There is a detailed Chronology which basically provides info about every known live performance and recording date that coltrane was on. The book does not include a comprehensive discographry. Porter had worked on one with Yashuiro Fujioka that was published in 95 and I think he is working on a revision based on the research he conducted for the bio. But besides that, this book seems to have all the most recent info about coltrane through the books publication date, which was 1998

It is very good and an excellent resource. It definitely focuses a ton on music and I wouldn't recommend this unless you had some knowledge of jazz theory and history or didn't mind skimming through sections of musical analysis when it went in that direction. The tone of the book is pretty academic, imo. As a biography, i would say it's pretty good, but it's not as great a work as Hajdu's strayhorn bio.

[Noel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Porter's forte is music criticism; not writing a narrative tale of who this grand jazz giant was in real life. I believe the subtitle is a bit misleading as it should be: "His Music and His Life".

While I'm not an expert on jazz sheet music, he thoroughly highlights his most important works; includes manuscript images of some major/minor works; and explains the context of the origin and evolution of his music.

As far as knowing "Trane" the persona, I was dissatisfied with the way his story was presented. The narrative was choppy, and informative. For instance, towards the end of the book, Porter makes reference to Coltrane having a child through an affair with his first wife and doesn't mention her anymore. A footnote doesn't prove this fact, only that a relative assumes this child just disappeared. He hardly mentions the relationship with his mother and how it evolved throughout his life; his relationship with his own family; and most importantly, his relationship with his fellow jazz musicians.

The book mentions it corrects errors of previous biographies, which we'll have to take for face value, but in the end, this book lacked much gusto on the life of this jazz titan.

[Rob the Obscure · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are interested in Coltrane, and especially if you are a musician, this book is not to be missed. The work goes deeply into Coltrane's life, legacy, and spirituality, and does a decent job of revealing the source of his music and psychological make up in his unending and ultimately unresolved spiritual search. While doing this, the author also provides numerous examples of transcriptions of Coltrane's music so that the musician-reader can understand the application of theory and harmony to his compositions and his solos. This avoids the frequently held and misguided position that, near the end of his career, Coltrane had ceased to be a disciplined musician and was just making noise.

If you are not a musician, but interested in Coltrane purely as a lover of his music and the influence he had on many genres since he died, the book can still be of value by just skipping over the technical passages. The book will lose nothing by taking that approach.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Besides my new appreciation for Art Pepper, I have always loved the saxophone: Bird, Bean, Prez, Branford, even Clemens and Clinton (LOL) but seriously my favorite sax player of all time has been and still is Trane. Since I was on this kick already, I grabbed a Coltrane biography, (John Coltrane, His Life and Music by Lewis Porter) and really enjoyed it. I find it fascinating that both he and Miles were both able to go cold turkey and quite smack BY THEMSELVES after years of abuse in each case. Unfortunately for Trane, his body never fully recovered from the abuse and he died relatively young but not after realising some of the most incredible pieces of music in the 20th C. Reading the book gave me a whole new appreciation for A Love Supreme and many of the other later, more complex Coltrane albums as well as his magical addition to the First Quintet with Miles. Truly an incredible and unique musician.

[Travis Haight · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took me a lot longer to read than I normally do, ones of this size. It's not that it wasn't interesting...it was very much so, and about one of my absolute favorite musicians of all time. The only problem is that it is not only extremely dry, but is chock full of major and minor musical references, technical music things. As someone who is not a musician, but is a music fanatic who appreciates when things are explained, but not being dumbed down, it is a little bit problematic. All in all, it was entertaining, and I learned a lot of inside stuff about, one member of my short list of favorite jazz musicians. I would recommend it to most people, but you may find yourself looking some stuff up along the way.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Porter makes the unnecessarily bold claim that his is the definitive work on Coltrane, which is a problem since he takes a lot of material from the interviews in "Coltrane on Coltrane," does not provide a comprehensive biography, and doesn't get too deep into recording sessions or the specific ways his various LPs were put together. He does provide musical analysis which is important, and helped me to understand the "Giant Steps" changes, for example, but beyond that gets into technical music theory that is above my understanding. Glad I read it but feel like I have more reading to do.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book by Lewis Porter is exceedingly in depth, and meticulously researched. Unfortunately, it's also some very dry reading, in my opinion. With that said, I did learn a few things I didn't know, such as the experimentation with LSD that Coltrane did later in life. Recommended for musicians, or hard core Coltrane fans. Other people may want to start elsewhere.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best bio on Coltrane written. Traces his roots back to slavery days. Comments are all referenced. Explores controversial issues such as was it drugs that killed Coltrane. In addition to being a biography, a thorough explanation of the musical theory of his compositions is included. If you read one book on Coltrane, this should be it.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't waste your time on other Coltrane biographies. This is the only one with any serious rigor, fact-checking and clarity. It's full of transcriptions, with several entire solos presented and discussed thoroughly. Every musician should read it.

[X · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gets five stars simply because John Coltrane was a saint. This is a very even-handed overview of his life and musical developments, with several moments of strong insight into Coltrane's character.

[Kelton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very academically targeted biography. Excellent and thorough sources. Most important to me however was the authors in depth analysis of Coltrane's harmonically derived and spiritually derived musics and how those aspects interact to create the masterpieces we have today.

[ajp3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I borrowed this from a saxophone playing friend of mine. it's a really great book with a lot love and time put into it, definitely a must read for music lovers. the analysis of a love supreme is interesting, and the transcription of one of his last duets w/Rasheed Ali was fun to try to play also.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this one quite a bit. It's a really nice blend of scholarly research and musical analysis. As a musician, I found the musical analysis interesting and clearly written. I would consider this book a "must read" for any fan of Coltrane, or any fan of jazz.

[Robert Posey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scholarly but readable is best way I can describe this biography. Good bonus material in appendices & notes. I agree that his putting down of other books on Coltrane is silly, but that's about my only quibble.

[Dalton Babcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book. I admittedly had to gloss over the more musically theoretical passages but the rest was great. Porter's last sentence works as a tearjerking epitaph for Coltrane. "There will never [again] be three notes quite like them"

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very technical book and a bit dry. If you're into music theory then read this book.

[Franco Vite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ti piace il jazz? Ami John Coltrane?
Ecco, questa è LA biografia di Trane.

[Jean-denis Crouhy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Une étude sérieuse sur la vie de Coltrane et sa musique (avec des partitions en prime !)

Une mine d'or pour les fans de Coltrane !!En anglais uniquement pour l'instant...

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

This definitive biography combines genealogical research with musicological analysis.

[Ashley]

I started this a long time ago, but it was a hard one to get through because it was very detailed on every event that happened in coltranes life, i couldn't get through it

[Winter Sophia Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never Mind The Others, This Is It!

[Austin Vuolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most complete biography one can imagine.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book about a musical genius. Well written and doesn’t assume you know much about jazz. Put Coltrane on in the background and understand more about the man who created spiritual jazz. Recommended