John Coltrane

John Coltrane was a noted jazz tenor saxophone player.

He first came to prominence playing with the first great Miles Davis quintet, during which time he helped develop Modal Jazz. His early solo works, however, extend the Bebop idiom to ever more complex extremes, culminating in the extremely difficult Giant Steps, which is still considered a milestone in the development of any aspirant jazz musician.

In the early sixties, he persued a more modal direction, eschewing harmonic complexity for driving rhythm and pure melody - in this he was helped by drummer Elvin Jones and pianist McCoy Tyner who together with bassist Jimmy Garrison provided the pulsating backdrop for Coltrane's increasingly extreme adventures.

Coltrane's last works border on the atonal, and are still considered extremely challenging for the listener.

Although he had given up alcohol and heroin abuse many years previously, he had done enough damage to cause his death from liver cancer in 1967.