Coltrane Quotes - Page 3

• I've been listening to a lot of John Coltrane. I don't know if that would or wouldn't surprise anybody. I go through different phases - sometimes I want to listen to music that's just pummeling.

  Robin Pecknold

  Listening, Different, Sometimes

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• My dad would play me all of these records: Miles Davis records, John Coltrane records, Bill Evans records, a lot of jazz records. My first exposure to music was listening to jazz records.

  Eldar Djangirov

  Dad, Listening, Jazz

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• Out of Coltrane's whole history, there are things which I think are great from all the periods.

  Lee Konitz

  Thinking, Periods, Whole

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• John Coltrane, he talks to god. He starts playing his solo, he might play for 14 minutes. For 14 minutes, it seems like he's talking to god, but he always takes a hold of the melody.

  Patti Smith

  Melody

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Well, you know, the first step I took was to drop the alto and baritone and concentrate on tenor exclusively, a decision I've never really looked back on with any regret. Another thing was that I was 17 when I moved up there, and my listening had really focused on freer music in the previous couple of years- Coltrane was playing with his expanded group, and everyone was listening closely to that, and we were into Shepp and Ayler as well.

  David S. Ware

  Couple, Regret, Years

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• It was Miles Davis who took me to New York, and Coltrane was in the band, as well as Paul Chambers, Philly Jo Jones. 'Trane took me aside, and, of course, we did Blue Trane, which was my first album-and that started everything. He had confidence that I didn't have; he saw something that I didn't see.

  Curtis Fuller

  New York, Blue, Albums

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• Some musicians, man, you hear the note almost before they hit it. Jimi, Coltrane and Charlie Parker were like that.

  Carlos Santana

  Music, Men, Notes

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• I take my fundamental cue from John Coltrane that says there must be a priority of integrity, honesty, decency, and mastery of craft.

  Cornel West

  Honesty, Integrity, Priorities

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• John Coltrane is still probably one of the greatest musicians of this century. His tone truly puts demons on a leash. His gift is directly from the mind of God and is very powerful. ..... The first time I heard a Love Supreme, it was really an assault. It could've been from mars as far as i was concerned, or another galaxy.
  I remember the album cover and the name, but the music didn't fit into the patterns of my brain at that point. It was like someone trying to tell a monkey about spirituality or computers, you know, it just didn't compute.

  Carlos Santana

  Powerful, Names, Mind

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• My own musical background is based in the blues, and in classical composition. I grew up listening to Muddy Waters, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Beethoven and Bach.

  Frederick Lenz

  Water, Musical, Listening

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• Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!

  Miles Davis

  Play, Jazz, Cant

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• As much as I think John Coltrane belongs on the list, I think without Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, both of whom defined improvising on the tenor sax, there would not have been the evolution of the craft by John Coltrane.

  Herbie Mann

  Thinking, Crafts, Lists

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• Style to me is incidental. The British are very adept at creating it for its own sake, but the best style is incidental. John Coltrane had a style but it was totally incidental to what he was.

  Tom Verlaine

  Creating, Style, Sake

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• The chords in 'Light My Fire' are based on [John] Coltrane's version of this song. He just solos over A minor and B minor, which is exactly what we did. Coltrane had played with Miles on Kind of Blue and took the idea of modal soloing over one or two chords farther out than anybody. He was a real pioneer - he just kept evolving, going where no one had ever gone. He could always attain this state of ecstasy when he played. Live, there was so much energy, you couldn't believe it. He would play for hours. It was indescribable.

  Robby Krieger

  Song, Real, Believe

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• I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have from reading novels. The understatements in the tenor saxophone of Lester Young, the crystal, haunting, forever searching sounds of John Coltrane, and the softness and violence of Count Basie's big band - all have fired my imagination as much as anything in literature.

  Ernest Gaines

  Reading, Writing, Imagination

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• The way so many musicians slavishly imitated Coltrane, that's the way it was with Charlie Parker - only even more so, if that can be imagined. Everyone that I knew changed totally. But they took the worst things of his playing-that harsh sound; it just didn't come off the way they did it. The way he did it was great, Their way wasn't good at all. I just would listen to 'em, say: 'That's a Bird imitator', and that would be it; I would never care to listen to them again.

  Art Pepper

  Bird, Musician, Sound

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• I took LSD and listened to Coltrane a lot; a lot of people did.

  Sam Andrew

  People, Lsd

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• My father was a jazz tenor sax player. He played in a lot of big bands. So I had that sound around me all the time. The first record that really caught my ear was Clifford Brown's 'Brownie Eyes.' I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Illinois Jacquet. This is where I come from... I love improvisational music.

  Meshell Ndegeocello

  Father, Eye, Player

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• This is a tradition of resistance to the term that's as old as the term itself, especially because that term has been used to commodify and reduce black creativity, and also to appropriate and sell it. That's what John Coltrane said in an interview with a Japanese journalist: "Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist." And he's treated as one of the central figures in the history of jazz. So if he rejected it, then why is it weird when I do it? I'm in the tradition!

  Vijay Iyer

  Creativity, Black, Jazz

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• To me John Coltrane was like an angel on earth. He struck me that deeply.

  Elvin Jones

  Angel, Earth, Angels On Earth

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• Jazz musicians like John Coltrane needed these very clear titles for their abstract music, and your decision to bring voices into your music as a way to tap into content. It's related to the way my text-based work still functions as abstraction for me. If I repeat a sentence down a canvas, the text starts to smudge and disappear. It essentially becomes an abstract piece. The meaning of the text is still there.

  Glenn Ligon

  Decision, Musician, Jazz

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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