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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.

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
Feels
Face
Great
Faces
Work
Future
Optimistically
Every
Past
Considering
Music
Heritage
Reason
Giants
Come
Promise
Feel
Present

More quotes by John Coltrane

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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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I'm into scales right now.
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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.
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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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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.
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All of the technique doesn't matter... only if the feeling is right.
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Change is inevitable in music - things change.
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I want to be a force for real good. In other words, I know there are bad forces. You know, I know that there are forces out here 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.
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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.
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Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.
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All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.
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Damn the rules, it's the feeling that counts.
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The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.
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God breathes through us so completely...So gently we hardly feel it...yet it is our everything.
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Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft.
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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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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
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I think the majority of musicians are interested in truth.
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Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.
John Coltrane