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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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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
Sell
Jazz
Exist
Word
Music

More quotes by John Coltrane

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Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.
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I think the majority of musicians are interested in truth.
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Damn the rules, it's the feeling that counts.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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God breathes through us so completely...So gently we hardly feel it...yet it is our everything.
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Don't ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person.
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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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Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.
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Change is inevitable in music - things change.
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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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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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All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.
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The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.
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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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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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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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I'm into scales right now.
John Coltrane