My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there’s no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am – my faith, my knowledge, my being.
JOHN COLTRANEThe first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.
More John Coltrane Quotes
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Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist.
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The real risk is not changing. I have to feel that I’m after something. If I make money, fine. But I’d rather be striving. It’s the striving, man, it’s that I want.
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Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft.
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Don’t ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person.
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The main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe.
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God breathes through us so completely, So gently we hardly feel it, yet it is our everything.
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Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.
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.
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I think music is an instrument. It can create the initial thought patterns that can change the thinking of people.
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I think I know what it is but don’t ask me to play it.
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Change is inevitable in music – things change.
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My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.
JOHN COLTRANE -
Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts.
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Whatever I’d say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.
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Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock ‘n’ roll band.
JOHN COLTRANE