Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.
JOHN COLTRANEStarting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.
JOHN COLTRANEAll 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 COLTRANEI’m into scales right now.
JOHN COLTRANEI’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 COLTRANEMy 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 COLTRANEGod breathes through us so completely, So gently we hardly feel it, yet it is our everything.
JOHN COLTRANEI think the majority of musicians are interested in truth.
JOHN COLTRANESometimes 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 COLTRANEI 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 COLTRANEWorking with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft.
JOHN COLTRANEAll of the technique doesn’t matter only if the feeling is right.
JOHN COLTRANEMy music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.
JOHN COLTRANEThe 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 COLTRANEAny time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock ‘n’ roll band.
JOHN COLTRANEWhen you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.
JOHN COLTRANEI think music is an instrument. It can create the initial thought patterns that can change the thinking of people.
JOHN COLTRANE