John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music.
Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in saxophone and piano playing.
A Love Supreme is an album by American jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. He recorded it in one session on December 9, 1964, at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, leading a quartet featuring pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones.
"Giant Steps" is a jazz composition by American saxophonist John Coltrane. It was first recorded in 1959 and released on the 1960 album Giant Steps. The composition features a cyclic chord pattern that has come to be known as Coltrane changes. The composition has become a jazz standard, covered by many artists. Due to its speed and rapid transition through the three keys of B major, G major and E♭ major, Vox described the piece as "the most feared song in jazz" and "one of the most challenging chord progressions to improvise over" in the jazz repertoire.
Alice Coltrane, also known by her adopted Sanskrit name Turiyasangitananda, was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader and swamini.
Transition is an album of music by jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, recorded in 1965 but released posthumously only in 1970. As its title indicates, Transition was a bridge between classic quartet recordings like A Love Supreme and the more experimental works of Coltrane's last years.
Journey in Satchidananda is the fourth solo album by Alice Coltrane. Four of the album's tracks were recorded at the Coltrane home studios in Dix Hills, New York, in November 1970, while the remaining track was recorded live at the Village Gate in July of that year. It was released by Impulse! Records in 1971. On the album, Coltrane appears on piano and harp, and is joined by saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, bassists Cecil McBee and Charlie Haden, and drummer Rashied Ali. Vishnu Wood also appears on oud on the live track, while the studio recordings also feature Majid Shabazz on bells and tambourine and Tulsi on tanpura.
Lonnie Liston Smith Jr. is an American jazz, soul, and funk musician who played with such jazz artists as Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis before forming Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes, recording a number of albums widely regarded as classics in the fusion, smooth jazz and acid jazz genres.
Divine Songs is an album by Swamini Turiyasangitananda, formerly known as Alice Coltrane. It is an album composed of devotional songs from the Hindu religion. The songs are accompanied by Turiya's signature playing on the Wurlitzer organ. She plays the songs on the organ, beginning with the traditional Indian mode but then improvises and stretches it until it turns back on itself musically. Her use of breaks, syncopation and harmonic invention re-image the songs into something original and nearly unclassifiable.
Standard Coltrane is an album by jazz musician John Coltrane released in October 1962 by Prestige Records. It was recorded at a single recording session at the studio of Rudy Van Gelder in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 1958. This album was rereleased in 1970 as The Master with that version rereleased on CD to include the other four tunes recorded at the same 11 July session. Those other tunes had previously been released on two other albums assembled from unissued recordings.
Sharkula is a Chicago-area rapper. His lyrics are known for being scatterbrained, discontinuous, free-associative, non-violent, apolitical and random. He is also known as a flâneur for promoting his music and shows via use of hand-made flyers and stickers scattered around vending boxes in Chicago, and street marketing often with phrases such as "Hey, you like Hip-Hop?". He has appeared on Chic-a-Go-Go and his album Martin Luther King Jr. Whopper With Cheese was voted by readers of The Chicago Reader as one of the 20 best albums of 2004.
Marrow is an American rock band from Chicago, Illinois. The band consists of three former members of the Chicago band Kids These Days, as well as one new member.
Ravyn Lenae Washington is an American R&B singer-songwriter from Chicago who is currently signed to Atlantic Records and the Three Twenty Three Music Group. She is also a member of the musical collective Zero Fatigue. Her debut EP, Moon Shoes, was released independently in 2015 and reissued by Atlantic Records in 2016. Her follow-up EP, Midnight Moonlight, was released in 2017. In addition to performing at several music festivals, Lenae has also toured with SZA on her Ctrl Tour and Noname on her Telefone Tour.
Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album is a studio album recorded by saxophonist John Coltrane for Impulse! Records that was first released in 2018. The recordings were made in 1963 during Coltrane's Classic Quartet period and lost for decades.
Finom is a rock band from Chicago, which singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist duo Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart formed in 2014. Since 2016, Matt Carroll has been FINOM's drummer.
Kamaal Williams is a British musician and record producer. Williams rose to prominence alongside drummer Yussef Dayes in 2016 as one half of the short-lived London-based jazz group Yussef Kamaal following the release of the duo's debut album, Black Focus, which earned them the 'Breakthrough Act' award at the 2017 Jazz FM awards. He released two solo albums under his record label Black Focus, including The Return (2018) and Wu Hen (2020). In addition to live instrumentation, Williams also releases electronic music under his given name Henry Wu.
Michael Blake is a Canadian-born American saxophonist, composer and arranger. Blake is based in New York City where he has led a robust career leading his own bands. As a sideman Michael has performed with Charlie Hunter, The Lounge Lizards, Steven Bernstein/Henry Butler and the Hot 9, Ben Allison and Ray LaMontagne. The New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff wrote,"Mr. Blake, on tenor especially, is an endlessly engaging improviser, and an inquisitive one".
Relative Pitch Records is an American independent record label specializing in free jazz and avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, and experimental music. Run by Kevin Reilly, Relative Pitch has been ranked among the top jazz record labels in The New York City Jazz Record and DownBeat year-end lists, and praised by publications and organizations including The Guardian, NPR Music, The Brooklyn Rail, and in Bandcamp Daily's label profile, "Relative Pitch is Built on Enthusiasm for Experimental Music".
Ode to the Living Tree is an album by drummer Andrew Cyrille. It was recorded in December 1994 at XIPPI Studio in Dakar, Senegal, and was released by Venus Records in 1995, as well as by Evidence Music in 1997. On the album, Cyrille is joined by saxophonists Oliver Lake and David Murray, pianist Adegoke Steve Colson, bassist Fred Hopkins, and percussionist Mor Thiam. According to Cyrille, it was the first jazz album recorded in Senegal.
Spiritual jazz is a sub-genre of jazz that originated in the United States during the 1960s. The genre is hard to characterize musically but draws from free, avant-garde and modal jazz and thematically focuses on transcendence and spirituality. John Coltrane's 1965 album A Love Supreme is considered landmark in the genre.
