Today - July 17, 2007 - marks the 40th anniversary of the death of John Coltrane. The tenor saxophonist who affected jazz on a level parallel to the effect the Beatles had on pop music, his legacy continues to grows for a handful of reasons. No 1: Listeners finally get it. It has taken box sets, tribute concerts, McCoy Tyner's testifying and arrangements for big bands for it all to set in - the passion this man transferred from his lips and lungs into sound remains untouched - there was no one better before and no one has come close to touching his legacy since. And for novices, the simple way to assess his music is in chronological order; it all becomes crystal clear if one hears "A Love Supreme" later rather than sooner.
Clearly he was the last giant figure in the music's history: no jazz players have approached his depth as a composer, innovator and performer. The most recent raiding of the vaults has produced "My Favorite Things: Coltrane at Newport," a 1965 concert that was released two weeks ago.
A roundup of today's Coltrane offerings on the Web: Bret Primack has a documentary on the relationship between Coltrane and Sonny Rollins; Newsday has a piece on Coltrane's New York home and a classic video; one 1965 performance of "Naima" is on YouTube; and details are set for the 30th John Coltrane Memorial Concert, which will take place in September in Boston. Sadly, JohnColtrane.com has not been updated for some time.
P.S. It was the critic Ira Gitler who coined the phrase "Sheets of Sound" to describe Trane's style. he came up with the term in late 1958 after Coltrane had left Miles Davis band and was about to embark on of the greatest journeys in the history of American music.