From a technical viewpoint, I have certain things I’d like to present in my solos. To do this, I have to get the right material. It has to swing, and it has to be varied. – John Coltrane
I’d like to point out to people the divine in a musical language that transcends words. I want to speak to their souls. – John Coltrane
I start from one point and go as far as possible. But, unfortunately, I never lose my way. I ‘localize,’ which is to say that I think always in a given space. I rarely think of the whole of a solo, and only very briefly. I always return to the small part of the solo that I was in the process of playing. – John Coltrane
I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music. – John Coltrane
I’ve been devoting quite a bit of my time to harmonic studies on my own, in libraries and places like that. I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light. – John Coltrane
When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups. – John Coltrane
I’ve been listening to jazzmen, especially saxophonists, since the time of the early Count Basie records, which featured Lester Young. Pres was my first real influence, but the first horn I got was an alto, not a tenor. – John Coltrane
God breathes through us so completely… so gently we hardly feel it… yet, it is our everything. – John Coltrane
My music is the spiritual expression of what I am – my faith, my knowledge, my being. – John Coltrane
I want to be a force for real good. In other words. I know that there are bad forces, forces that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good. – John Coltrane
I believe that men are here to grow themselves into best good that they can be – at least, this is what I want to do. – John Coltrane
Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock ‘n’ roll band. – John Coltrane
I first met Miles Davis about 1947 and played a few jobs with him and Sonny Rollins at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. During this period, he was coming into his own, and I could see him extending the boundaries of jazz even further. – John Coltrane
I’ve always felt that even though a man was not a Christian, he still has to know the truth some way or another. Or if he was a Christian, he could know the truth. The truth itself doesn’t have any name on it to me. And each man has to find this for himself, I think. – John Coltrane
All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws. – John Coltrane
In the year of 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening, which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. – John Coltrane
Overall, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give to the listener the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe… That’s what I would like to do. I think that’s one of the greatest things you can do in life, and we all try to do that in some way. The musician’s is through his music. – John Coltrane
My goal is to live the truly religious life and express it through my music. If you can live it, there’s no problem about the music, because it’s part of the whole thing. – John Coltrane
