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Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.

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
Made
Greatest
Would
Knowing
Men
Known
Life
Whatever
People
Music
Understatement
Better
Jazz
Ever
Musician
Much
Friend

More quotes by John Coltrane

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Change is inevitable in music - things change.
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.
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All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.
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Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.
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Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.
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Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist.
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There is never any end... There are always new sounds to imagine new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we've discovered in its pure state.
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Considering the great heritage in music that we have - the work of the giants of the past, the present, and the promise of those who are to come - I feel that we have every reason to face the future optimistically.
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The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.
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I'm into scales right now.
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.
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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.
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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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All of the technique doesn't matter... only if the feeling is right.
John Coltrane
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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.
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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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...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'.
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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
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I think the majority of musicians are interested in truth.
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Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft.
John Coltrane