Happy Birthday, John Coltrane

John Coltrane’s 100th birthday is July 17.

John was born in 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina. While a young boy, his father, grandmother, and aunt passed away within months of each other. This loss spurred his mother to give Coltrane the money to buy his first instrument and take lessons on the saxophone. His family moved to Philadelphia during his teenage years to take advantage of the wartime boons in industrial production. He briefly joined the Navy during World War II and continued to practice saxophone while stationed overseas.

Considered one of the greatest jazz saxophonists of all time, Coltrane played and collaborated with other great jazz artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Thelonious Monk. Coltrane was an active heroin addict and alcoholic for many years but was able to stop using drugs after his friend Miles Davis told him to leave his band if he continued to use drugs. His wife, Alice Coltrane, was also a celebrated pianist and musician who often collaborated with him on his band as well. They had four children who also went on to become musicians and play with their mother. Coltrane is most remembered for his “sheets of sound” style saxophone jazz that he pioneered playing in a band with Thelonious Monk. On his own, the Coltrane jazz style continued to develop into more advanced technical outputs, and he is categorized as hard bop and free jazz.

He tragically passed away in 1967 at 40 years old after a short battle with liver cancer. John Coltrane was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, and inducted into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame, all posthumously. Take a look at the titles below to hear his music and learn more about one of the great jazz players of the 20th century.