News & Updates — John Coltrane

The great jazz bass virtuoso Paul Chambers, forever immortalized by his old pal John Coltrane as "Mr PC", brought the instrument to a new level in his very short time on the planet. He was an early popularizer of the bowing technique and contributed greatly to harmonic advancement for the instrument. Born in Pittsburgh and raised in Detroit, Chambers played brass instruments before switching to bass at 14. He quickly started playing classical music while still in high school, as well as jazz with Barry Harris before moving to NYC in the mid-'50s. He held a regular gig with Miles...

The original hippy, the mystical eden ahbez wrote a tune called "Nature Boy" and by chance was able to hand it to Nat King Cole who turned it into a mega-hit in 1948. He looked like a hippy long before it was a thing and lived outdoors in Los Angeles. He lived under the "L" of the Hollywood sign and held a job as a piano player in a raw foods store. He was a vegetarian, straight edge and an anti-vaxer and wore a white robe. This lifestyle inspired "Nature Boy", and after the hit by Cole, ahbez became an...

The Catalan pianist Tete Montoliu was born in 1933 in Barcelona. He came from a musical family that had Don Byas as a housemate in the family home. Blind since birth, he learned to read Braille music. Influenced by Art Tatum and Duke Ellington, he came out of the conservatory and started touring with Lionel Hampton in '55 and proceeded to become one of the top jazz players in Europe, eventually gaining a solid reputation internationally. He cut a lot of solo records, sometimes played with vocalists or in duo format (with saxophonist George Coleman, for example) but often could...

One of my favorite bassists (and a major piece of the Coltrane groups of the '60s), Jimmy Garrison came out of the Philly jazz scene, working and/or recording with a host of greats such as Kenny Dorham, Calvin Massey, Jackie McLean, Ornette Coleman, Lee Konitz, Philly Joe Jones and others before hooking up with Trane in '62. He brought a hard-driving style that later displayed a flamenco-inspired lyricism (at times) to the Trane sound as his #1 bassist until the saxophonist's death in '67. In the following years he continued to record with many Coltrane associates (such as Alice, Elvin...

Not necessarily a household name and not quite a flashy player, Tadd Dameron was one of the great arrangers in jazz and wrote a few standards. The pianist's own compositions include "Hot House", "Lady Bird", "Soultrane", "Fontainebleau", "If You Could See Me Now", "Good Bait" and "Mating Call", but he was an in-demand arranger who worked with Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Count Basie, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughn, Milt Jackson, Benny Goodman, Billy Eckstine and others before the dope got the best of him. From Cleveland, Dameron learned piano from his mother as a child. His saxophonist brother and he would...