John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 -- July 17, 1967), nicknamed Trane, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Although recordings of his work from as early as 1946 exist, Coltrane's recording career did not begin in earnest until 1955. From 1957 onward he recorded and produced dozens of albums, many of them not released until years after his death. He achieved extraordinary popularity, while also responding to a religious awakening that has made him a source of spiritual inspiration.
Coltrane has been credited with reshaping modern jazz and being the predominant influence on successive generations of saxophonists. Like tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Ben Webster before him, Coltrane fundamentally altered expectations for the instrument.
Coltrane received a posthumous Special Citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board in 2007 for his "masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz."
Death (1967)
Coltrane died from liver cancer at Huntington Hospital in Long Island, NY on July 17, 1967, at the age of 40 after decades of alcohol and heroin abuse during the 1940s and 1950s. In a 1968 interview Albert Ayler revealed that Coltrane was consulting a Hindu meditative healer for his illness instead of Western medicine, though Alice Coltrane later denied this. In any event, conventional treatment may have been ineffective.
The Coltrane family reportedly remains in possession of much more as-yet-unreleased music, mostly mono reference tapes made for the saxophonist and, as with the 1995 release Stellar Regions, master tapes that were checked out of the studio and never returned. The parent company of Impulse!, from 1965 to 1979 known as ABC Records, purged much of its unreleased material in the 1970s. Biographer Lewis Porter has stated that Alice Coltrane intended to release this music, but over a long period of time as her son Ravi Coltrane is also pursuing his own career.
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John Coltrane website
John Coltrane & Stan Getz: Hackensack (Rifftide)
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