JOHN COLTRANE

John William Coltrane grew up in the church, steeped in gospel and hymns, before the saxophone became his instrument of devotion. He cut his teeth in the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Earl Bostic, then joined Miles Davis's first great quintet in 1955, where his sheets of sound began to take shape.

But it was his own relentless pursuit—through bebop, modal jazz, and finally into the spiritual free jazz of his final years—that redefined what the music could express.

Giant Steps (1960) arrived like a gauntlet thrown: complex, virtuosic, harmonically audacious. Then came My Favorite Things, where Coltrane's soprano sax transformed a Rodgers and Hammerstein standard into a hypnotic, modal meditation. By 1965, A Love Supreme—a four-part suite of devotion—had become his masterpiece, a work of transcendent spiritual intensity that remains one of jazz's most revered recordings.

His final years saw him push further still: Ascension, Meditations, and Interstellar Space ventured into free jazz's outer reaches, where structure dissolved and sound became prayer. Coltrane's classic quartet—with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones—set a standard for collective improvisation that has never been matched.

Explore the unique legacy of John Coltrane from the releases below