You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.
JOHN COLTRANEAny time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock ‘n’ roll band.
More John Coltrane Quotes
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The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.
JOHN COLTRANE -
Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I’ll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that’s too bad.
JOHN COLTRANE -
Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist.
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 -
There are so many things to be considered in making music. The whole question of life itself… I know that I want to produce beautiful music, music that does things to people that they need.
JOHN COLTRANE -
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.
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 -
Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.
JOHN COLTRANE -
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.
JOHN COLTRANE -
My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.
JOHN COLTRANE -
I think I know what it is but don’t ask me to play it.
JOHN COLTRANE -
I believe that men are here to grow themselves into the best good that they can be – at least, this is what I want to do.
JOHN COLTRANE -
I think music is an instrument. It can create the initial thought patterns that can change the thinking of people.
JOHN COLTRANE -
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 -
Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts.
JOHN COLTRANE