Tag Archives: John Coltrane
Smack Talk
My man Ezra flipped a sweet Dazed article about music and heroin into our {R}emnants mag on Flipboard yesterday, and sitting down to post it caught my eye. Here’s a bit from Dazed… But heroin has consistently eluded this ebb and flow, from its prominence and influence in the jazz and blues era of the [...]
Made in USA
Observing John Coltrane’s birthday last week, I was reminded of this great documentary about one of the few Texans actually worthy of the Lone Star hype. If Coltrane is the Heavyweight Champion, Ornette Coleman is Bruce Lee. Here’s Ornette: Made in America directed by the late, great Shirley Clarke… OMIA from Saxology on Vimeo. Stay [...]
Missing Trane
This month we remember the death of John Coltrane on July 17, 1967. Coltrane’s resume stretches from R&B honking to playing with be-bop legends like Miles and Monk, to pioneering his own spiritually illuminated free jazz in the last decades of his life. A true giant of American music, Coltrane makes my shortlist of heroes [...]
Celebrating Trane
More than a year ago, on this blog, I added a post about John Coltrane. It was a July entry, remembering the giant’s death in that month in 1967. Today I’m remembering Trane’s birth on September 23, 1926. Here’s the same post from last summer. Whether in life or in death, Coltrane looms large for [...]
A Love Supreme At 50
50 years ago in February, 1965, John Coltrane released A Love Supreme. One of the greatest albums in any genre, the record represented the culmination of Coltrane’s spiritual rebirth after recovering from heroin addiction nearly 10 years earlier. Coltrane pledged his horn to god during his struggles and Supreme is the sound of a man [...]
Echoes of Trane
On this day in 1967 we lost a giant of jazz. John Coltrane is a personal hero of mine. As a saxophonist I’ve always been enthralled by the instrument’s superlative ability to mimic the human voice and one is hard pressed to find any other horn man in jazz who exemplified the saxophone’s potential for [...]
Remembering Elvin Jones
Elvin Jones was a proud son of Pontiac, Michigan and one of my favorite jazz drummers of all time. Jones’ pioneering polyrhythmic style paired with his hard-hitting, aggressive playing made him one of the most recognizable and innovative drummers of the post-bop era. Here’s a word about this documentary which tells the story of the [...]
