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The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.

John Coltrane

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John Coltrane
Age: 40 †
Born: 1926
Born: September 23
Died: 1967
Died: July 17
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Jazz Musician
Musician
Saxophonist
Hamlet
North Carolina
Trane
John William Coltrane
St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane
Time
Heard
Eyes
Eye
Music
Firsts
Play
First
Jazz
Right
Bird

More quotes by John Coltrane

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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
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The reason I play so many sounds, maybe it sounds angry, is because I'm trying so many things at one time, you see? I haven't sorted them out. I have a whole bag of things that I'm trying to work through and get the one essential.
John Coltrane
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My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there's no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.
John Coltrane
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All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.
John Coltrane
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We should pray and seek for knowledge which would enable us to portray and project the things we love in music, in a way that might wholly or in some part, be appreciated as having been conceived and composed or performed and presented with dedication and in positive taste
John Coltrane
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Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft.
John Coltrane
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I'm into scales right now.
John Coltrane
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God breathes through us so completely...So gently we hardly feel it...yet it is our everything.
John Coltrane
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All of the technique doesn't matter... only if the feeling is right.
John Coltrane
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Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist.
John Coltrane
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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
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Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.
John Coltrane
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I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I'm doing . . . the emotional reaction is all that matters as long as there's some feeling of communication, it isn't necessary that it be understood.
John Coltrane
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...That is one of the main causes of this arrogance: the idea of power. Then you lose your true power which is to be part of all, and the only way you can be part of all is to understand it. And when you don't understand, you have to go humbly to it. You don't go to school and say, 'I know what you're going to teach me'.
John Coltrane
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Change is inevitable in music - things change.
John Coltrane
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If you're bourgeois, money is it. It's all the questions and all the answers. Ain't no E-flat or color blue, only $12.98 or $1,000. If it isn't money, it isn't nothing.
John Coltrane
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Don't ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person.
John Coltrane
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Over all, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things that he knows of and senses in the universe. . . Thats what I would like to do. I think thats one of the greatest things you can do in life and we all try to do it in some way. The musicians is through his music.
John Coltrane
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My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being...When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups...I want to speak to their souls.
John Coltrane
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Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.
John Coltrane