John Coltrane Quotes

I've been devoting quite a bit of my time to harmonic studies on my own, in libraries and places like that. I've found you've got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.

- John Coltrane

I first met Miles Davis about 1947 and played a few jobs with him and Sonny Rollins at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. During this period, he was coming into his own, and I could see him extending the boundaries of jazz even further.

- John Coltrane

Sometimes you have to take a thing when it comes and be glad. I first began to feel this way in '57, when I started to get myself together musically, although at the time I was working academically and technically.

- John Coltrane

Thankfully now, through the merciful hand of God, I do perceive and have been fully reinformed of his omnipotence. It is truly a love supreme.

- John Coltrane

I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe.

- John Coltrane

Overall, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give to the listener the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe... That's what I would like to do. I think that's one of the greatest things you can do in life, and we all try to do that in some way. The musician's is through his music.

- John Coltrane

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.

- John Coltrane

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

I start from one point and go as far as possible. But, unfortunately, I never lose my way. I 'localize,' which is to say that I think always in a given space. I rarely think of the whole of a solo, and only very briefly. I always return to the small part of the solo that I was in the process of playing.

- John Coltrane

I want to be a force for real good. In other words. I know that there are bad forces, forces 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.

- John Coltrane

I think that music, being an expression of the human heart, or of the human being itself, does express just what is happening - the whole of human experience at the particular time that it is being expressed.

- John Coltrane

My mother had aspirations to become a concert singer. Her Methodist Minister father didn't approve of young girls leaving home until they married, so she had to pass it up.

- John Coltrane

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups.

- John Coltrane

In the year of 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening, which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life.

- John Coltrane

I've been listening to jazzmen, especially saxophonists, since the time of the early Count Basie records, which featured Lester Young. Pres was my first real influence, but the first horn I got was an alto, not a tenor.

- John Coltrane

God breathes through us so completely... so gently we hardly feel it... yet, it is our everything.

- John Coltrane

Sheets of sound. Well, that was when I got tired of certain modulations. Like when you want to get back to C, and you've got to go to D and then G and then C. I was fooling around with the piano, and I figured out some other way to do it.

- John Coltrane

In any situation that we find in our lives, when there is something that we feel should be better, we must exert effort to try and make it better. So it's the same socially, musically, politically in any department of our lives.

- John Coltrane

I believe that men are here to grow themselves into best good that they can be - at least, this is what I want to do.

- John Coltrane

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.

- John Coltrane

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

From a technical viewpoint, I have certain things I'd like to present in my solos. To do this, I have to get the right material. It has to swing, and it has to be varied.

- John Coltrane

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

You can play a shoestring if you're sincere.

- John Coltrane

My goal is to live the truly religious life and express it through my music. If you can live it, there's no problem about the music, because it's part of the whole thing.

- John Coltrane

I think music is an instrument. It can create the initial thought patterns that can change the thinking of the people.

- John Coltrane

I find it's only when something is trying to come through I really practice. And then, I don't know how many hours. It's all day.

- John Coltrane

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.

- John Coltrane