John Coltrane's Love Is Still Supreme at Age 60

Much of this music was rooted in practices of the African ancestors, and it often reflected adaptations and innovations resulting from black American life experiences.

Coltrane’s own account, the period most associated with his first great defining style finds him trying to develop and master complex harmonies and chord structures.42 His aim, of course, was to expand the limits of the existing styles—swing, R&B, blues, and early bebop—in which he was formed and out of which he played. Coltrane’s second great

his work is primarily arranged into three discernible periods—his early or harmonic period, his middle or modal period, his late or experimental period—to distinguish and weigh the significance of each.

“Coltrane discovered and refined a style whose authority seemed purchased through the publicly performed anguish of his concerts and recordings. He pursued freedom not for the hell of it, but for the heaven of it—and he did so by creating settings of musical purgatory that forced him to confront his own limits.”

Outside of the musical knowledge and exposure, Coltrane also apprenticed in the daily struggles of black musicians on the road. Segregation was a dominant factor in the majority of performance venues, as well as the surrounding geographical area. This determined where one could eat, use the bathroom, get gasoline, rent a hotel room, or even get a d