What Makes John Coltrane?

I now realise that the Arts, including music, creates opportunities to engage, inspire and enrich our lives. Music making and responding can challenge, provoke responses and enrich our knowledge and understanding of ourselves, our communities and the world.

John Coltrane was born on September 23, 1926, in Hamlet, North Carolina. This particular day had important astrological significance. It was the day of the autumn equinox, one of only two days through the year where night and day are perfectly equal (Fraim 7).

In the memoir A Long Way Gone, author Ishmael Beah describes his survival journey as a lost child in his country, because of the civil war in Sierra Leone, then becoming a child soldier facing war daily, afterward the process that Beah went through during rehabilitation and finally in fear escaping the civil war. Ishmael Beah emotional journey has three stages of development in which Beah utilized music. In the first stage, Beah uses music as a survival mechanism to keep sane and safe. In the second stage, begins when he loses his brother and friends, Beah reaches the lowest point with the loss of his entire family again, some friends, music, and being forced to join the war. In the final stage, is the process of rehabilitation where Beah connects with music once again. Ishmael Beah exposure to music at a young age stayed with him throughout his life. (Beah, 2007, p. 5-218)

Throughout my life, I have been taken by music. However, it was not until my 8th grade year in middle school that I realized that I could be a musician for the rest of my life. Before that, music just seemed like something to keep me out of trouble. I wasn’t the best player at that time, and I still knew very little about it all. How could something like that ever support someone? Still, it was the only talent that I could find any success in, and it was still very enjoyable, so I wanted to still give it a shot.

what he became and did not let anything get in the way of becoming a musician. In this

John Coltrane Jazz, taking its roots in African American folk music, has evolved, metamorphosed, and transposed itself over the last century to become a truly American art form. More than any other type of music, it places special emphasis on innovative individual interpretation. Instead of relying on a written score, the musician improvises. For each specific period or style through which jazz has gone through over the past seventy years, there is almost always a single person who can be credited with the evolution of that sound. From Thelonius Monk, and his bebop, to Miles Davis' cool jazz, from Dizzy Gillespie's big band to John Coltrane's free jazz; America's music has been developed, and refined countless times

From the day we’re in our mother's stomachs, to the day we die, we have always been listening to music. For me, listening to music all my life helped me develop a passion for it. When I was around the age of 6 my dad introduced me into the world of Rock. The very first band I remember listening to was System of a Down and ever since then, I fell in love with rock music and all its possible variations; for a long time this was all I listened to. It wasn’t until high school that I started listening to all sorts of genres and realized that I wanted to have a career in the music industry. That's when I learned about producing music.

To understand the message and methods of Pete Seeger one must first understand his past. Pete is the son of the famous musicologist Charles Seeger. His mother taught violin at Julliard School of Music in New York. He dropped out of Harvard in 1938 to travel the country as a vagabond. He roamed the small towns and cities alike, learning songs unknown to the mainstream world. The obscure roots of Seeger’s music made him relatable and representative of blue collar communities across

Without practice and tedious fine-tuning, one’s art will never be the best that it can possibly be. For The Beatles, this practice arrived in an opportunity to play at nightclubs in Hamburg’s red light district. (The Beatles). Once they took the offer they migrated from Liverpool to the rough and dark part of Hamburg where they

"I've got to keep experimenting. I feel that I'm just beginning. I have part of what I'm looking for in my grasp, but not all."

John Coltrane being born on September 23, 1926 in a household with his mother, father, uncle, aunt, cousin, grandpa, and grandmother was raised in the south. Around age 12, the death of his father, grandfather, grandmother, and uncle occurred which then led his mother to leave and go off to Philadelphia to find work. John had to take time off from music after moving to the North but eventually fell upon it again. Coltrane struggled with a drug addiction which got him kicked out of bands but fortunately was able to quit “cold turkey” after realizing his music career was going to fall apart. After quitting, his music career risen higher than before and eventually found new love after divorcing his first wife.

Marvin Gaye grew up surrounded by the art of music. Born in the nations capital on April 2, 1939, Gaye’s ageless sounds and intriguing vocals still influence the world today. Gaye’s father, a minister in the Apostolic Church, played a foremost role in Marvin’s musical education. In fact, most of Marvin’s inspiration for religious topics came from the church music he grew up singing. Through the art of song, musical icon Marvin Gaye uses pathos, symbolism, and imagery with an objective to connect to listeners on tremendously personal levels.

He had dreams of being a musician, but it didn’t go far. I believe he didn’t grow attachment to anything due to his childhood. His father left him and his mother. His mother then left him to find work somewhere else. He had to live in 10 different homes as a kid.

John Cage lived a very interesting, non-traditional life that allowed him to form his outside of the box philosophy on music that questions the very definition of music. After exploring many different careers in the art world, he decided to compose music and through a winding, tumultuous road, he rose to the top of the classical music world. His life greatly influenced his music. His study of Buddhism and working with the choreographies of Merce Cunningham allowed Cage to discover the other side of music, silence. Cage and his philosophies not only changed music for the better but also changed the path that all types of art for the good; without Cage’s philosophy on silence, musicians and composers would be doing their jobs differently.

After being fired from Miles Davis's band in 1957 for his chronic use of heroin, John Coltrane was hurt tremendously. He decided it was time he quit using heroin. He took a month off from music while he went "cold turkey." During this month in the early spring of 1957, Coltrane had a momentous religious experience (Nisenson, 40). Coltrane asked God to give him "the means and privilege to make others happy through music" (Coltrane, 1995, 2). As time went on, Coltrane felt that he was leading a life that was "contradictory to the pledge and away from the esteemed path" that he had made to God (Coltrane, 1995, 2). Starting with A Love Supreme (recorded in December, 1964), Coltrane stuck to