Quintet, which included Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. He came to national prominence as a member. Coloration moved to New York in 1956. New York was the home of not only many Jazz musicians including Miles Davis, but also record companies and recording studios. But disaster struck, Coloration was kicked out by Miles because of heroin addiction. Coloration was crushed and returned to Philadelphia once more in the spring of 1957 to kick his heroin habit and his alcoholism. With the support of his wife and his mother, he spent an entire week in solitude, eating nothing and drinking only water.
He later described being ? Touched? By God during the time, and dedicated his next recording, ? A Love Supreme? , to his Lord. “My goal,” Coloration said as if (arising from the ashes) like a phoenix to preach his ? Revelation? , “is to live the truly religious life, and express it through my music. If you live it, when you play there’s no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am, my faith, my knowledge, my being. He would get rid of his addictions and rejoin the scene with Theologies Monk at New York? S Five Spot, which is know to many Jazz historians as a ? Legendary gig?. He eventually rejoined Miles, by January 958. From this point on, his tenor work displayed amazing fire and invention. His music used basic Jazz as a starting point, incorporated Eastern ideas and free-Jazz tendencies which included multiple or lengthy soloing with boundless energy. With Miles Davis, Chlorate’s big tone would help make that group one of the greatest Jazz Peg. Ensembles ever assembled. While with Miles he participated in such classic Davis sessions as Milestones and Kind Of Blue. In 1959, Coloration released “Giant Steps,” a groundbreaking album that firmly established him as a tenor master. His classic Giant Steps album contained the mighty tunes “Giant Steps” and “Countdown?. In 1960, Coloration formed his own group. This group included McCoy Tuner, Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison. This group has be acknowledged as one of the greatest and most celebrated groups in the history of Jazz.
They recorded and released a series of great albums including “My Favorite Things,” “A Love Supreme,” “Coloration Live at Birdman,” “Transition,” and others. Coloration later formed another innovative group, irking with his pianist wife, Alice. Together they went ahead with an extremely free and continuous improvising style. Coloration sought to lead a more healthy life, but unfortunately the excesses of his youth resulted in his early death at the age of 41 of liver disease on July 17, 1967.. It is impossible to grasp the truth behind John Coloration through a slue of facts and dates.
All the facts about his short life, all the memories of his friends and fellow musicians, and all the analysis of his playing style tell us hardly anything about the man Coloration himself. Coloration? S belief was that Jazz relies heavily on improvisation. He was known to solo for forty five minutes at a time. One of the interesting things is the same piece might Coloration is to listen to his music. Coloration broke the Jazz sound barrier with his restless experimentation and improvisations, his flamboyant free style of playing drove many listeners away.
Joel Odor describes in The Last Giant: The John Coloration Anthology; ? Let’s hard to realize, if you weren’t there, the size of the controversy that whirled around John Coloration and his music in the late ‘ass and early ‘ass. You either dug Trance or you didn’t. They tacked that same shadow on Monk. But it was Trance ho really stirred ‘me up. Trance’s music drove critics, fans, even musicians into violently pro- or con-Coloration camps. I remember seeing guys coming to blows over his music.
The fact that he was not even remotely involved in the controversy, Just the music, increased its intensity. ? Other examples of Collocates demeanor and style could be summed here by Mike Sherwin; ? He (Coloration) disliked being restricted by any sort of rules whatsoever. He told Wayne Shorter that he was trying to learn how to start in the middle of a sentence and move in both directions at the same time. About Schoenberg 12-note yester, he said: “Damn the rules. It’s the feeling that counts. You play all 12 notes anyway. A quote that I personally feel that exemplifies Coloration? S music and style would have to be one by Dawn Severest; ? The frequently mentioned dichotomy between Trance’s fiery, explosive musicianship and his quiet, gentle demeanor existed in the midst of this multiplicity, surrounded by the controversies among the critics, whose portraits of Trance ranged from that of a blasphemous perpetrator of “anti-Jazz” to that of a musician whose career as saxophone soloist, bandleader, and composer defined (and pedaled redefined) the style of music known as Jazz.? I think,” Coloration shared once, “the main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows and senses in the universe. That’s what music is to me–it’s Just another way of saying this is a big, beautiful universe we live in, that’s been given to us, and here’s an example of Just how magnificent and encompassing it is. That’s what I would like to do. I think that’s one of the greatest things you can do in life, and we all try to do it in some way. The Caucasians is through his music. John Coloration could? T have said it better, and his universe as perceived through his music is indeed beautiful and fast paced, but at the same time can be slow and methodical. He had an incredible talent, but it is the type of person he was that makes his music so memorable. Listening to him one could come to believe he doses? T even know your there he Just plays his feelings, his thoughts, his memories, and we are given a picture a window so to speak into his world of religious devotion and his aspirations.
For that many listeners and even Caucasians were turned away feeling like he was a rebel who was producing nothing feels deep inside. Another way of putting that would be to say he was attacked because he chose “not to bend his concepts of music in order to accommodate the pre-determinations and limitations of the audience’s ear. ” But for the same reasons others were drawn to that unique style of music. His music was non political for the most part except for “Alabama,” his eulogy for four young black girls killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.