John Coltrane › Similar Artists

Miles Davis - 100% match to John Coltrane

Miles Dewy Davis, 25 May 1926, Alton, Illinois, USA, d. 28 September 1991, Santa Monica, California, USA. Davis was born into a comparatively wealthy middle-class family and both his mother and sister were capable musicians. He was given a trumpet for his thirteenth birthday by his dentist father, who could not have conceived that his gift would set his son on the road to be Read more

Sonny Rollins - 63% match to John Coltrane

Theodore Walter Rollins, 7 September 1929, New York City, New York, USA. Although an older brother played violin and, at the age of nine, he took piano lessons, Rollins was destined for the saxophone. In 1944 he played alto saxophone in high school and when he left in 1947 he began gigging round New York on tenor. His first inspiration was Coleman Hawkins, but he was well aw Read more

Eric Dolphy - 62% match to John Coltrane

20 June 1928, Los Angeles, California, USA, d. 29 June 1964, Berlin, Germany. A fluent performer on several reed instruments, Dolphy began to play clarinet while still at school. On the west coast of America in the second half of the 40s he worked with Roy Porter’s band, before spending a couple of years in the US army. After his discharge, he played with several leadin Read more

Thelonious Monk - 60% match to John Coltrane

Thelonious Sphere Monk, 11 October 1917, Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA, d. 17 February 1982, Weehawken, New Jersey, USA. Monk’s family moved to New York when he was five years old. He started playing piano a year later, receiving formal tuition from the age of 11 onwards. At Stuyvesant High School he excelled at physics and maths, and also found time to play organ in Read more

Charles Mingus - 59% match to John Coltrane

Charlie Parker - 59% match to John Coltrane

Charles Christopher Parker, 29 August 1920, Kansas City, Kansas, USA, d. 12 March 1955, New York City, New York, USA. Although he was born on the Kansas side of the state line, Parker was actually raised across the Kaw River in Kansas City, Missouri. His nickname was originally ‘Yardbird’ due to his propensity for eating fried chicken - later this was shortened to Read more

Wayne Shorter - 54% match to John Coltrane

25 August 1933, Newark, New Jersey, USA. Shorter first played clarinet, taking up the tenor saxophone during his late teens. He studied music at New York University during the mid-50s before serving in the US army for two years. During his student days he had played with various bands, including that led by Horace Silver, and on his discharge encountered John Coltrane, with Read more

Ornette Coleman - 51% match to John Coltrane

9 March 1930, Fort Worth, Texas, USA. The evolution of any art form is a complex process and it is always an over-simplification to attribute a development to a single person. If there is anyone apart from Louis Armstrong for whom that claim could be made, however, Ornette Coleman would be a tenable candidate. Charlie Parker and John Coltrane were great forces for progress, Read more

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - 45% match to John Coltrane

Dexter Gordon - 43% match to John Coltrane

27 February 1923, Los Angeles, California, USA, d. 25 April 1990, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Gordon began his musical career studying clarinet; by his mid-teens he had switched to tenor saxophone, on which instrument he played with Lionel Hampton in 1940. He stayed with Hampton for a little over two years, recording with the band and gaining in stature so that no less Read more

Lee Morgan - 41% match to John Coltrane

10 July 1938, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 19 February 1972, New York City, New York, USA. Prodigiously talented, Morgan played trumpet professionally at the age of 15 and three years later joined Dizzy Gillespie’s big band. During this same period he recorded with John Coltrane, Hank Mobley and others. In 1958 the Gillespie band folded and Morgan joined Art Blak Read more

McCoy Tyner - 40% match to John Coltrane

Alfred McCoy Tyner, 11 December 1938, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Beginning in his early teens, Tyner studied piano formally for several years before joining the jazztet led by Benny Golson and Art Farmer in 1959. The following year he joined John Coltrane, with whom he had previously gigged in Philadelphia. He remained with Coltrane until 1965 in what became known as t Read more

Cannonball Adderley - 39% match to John Coltrane

Julian Edwin Adderley, 15 September 1928, Tampa, Florida, USA, d. 8 August 1975, Gary, Indiana, USA. Cannonball Adderley was one of the great saxophonists of his generation. His fiery, blues-soaked interpretations of Charlie Parker’s alto legacy brought jazz to many people hitherto untouched by it. In the 60s he launched a new genre, soul jazz, whose popularity has surv Read more

Freddie Hubbard - 38% match to John Coltrane

Frederick Dewayne Hubbard, 7 April 1938, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. Hubbard began playing trumpet as a child, and in his teens worked locally with Wes Montgomery and Monk Montgomery. When he was 20 he moved to New York, immediately falling in with the best of contemporary jazzmen. Amongst the musicians with whom he worked in the late 50s were Eric Dolphy (his room-mate for Read more

Joe Henderson - 38% match to John Coltrane