Free Republic

John Coltrane’s sessions for the Prestige label proved to be supremely fertile and prolific, marking the saxophonist’s creative rebirth.It’s 1958 and John Coltrane is looking to rebuild his career. The reputation of the Philadelphia-raised musician, then 32, had seemed in serious jeopardy a year earlier, after his heroin addiction got him fired from Miles Davis’ group. As a rising star of the tenor saxophone – the man who had lit up a clutch of Davis albums recorded for both Prestige and Columbia during 1955-56 – the high-flying Coltrane seemed an indispensable component of the trumpeter’s band, but the shock of...

The jazz saxophonist worked closely with John Coltrane and was a pioneer of the avant-garde movement.Pharoah Sanders, the jazz saxophonist who worked closely with John Coltrane and was a pioneer of the avant-garde movement, has died. He was 81 years old. No one played the tenor saxophone quite like Pharoah Sanders. When he blew his horn, it was as if he was a dragon breathing fire. He played it so loudly and with such a fierce intensity that what came out of his horn was a startlingly eerie howl, like a hurricane crossed with a flame-thrower; a sound that...

John Coltrane’s sessions for the Prestige label proved to be supremely fertile and prolific, marking the saxophonist’s creative rebirth.It’s 1958 and John Coltrane is looking to rebuild his career. The reputation of the Philadelphia-raised musician, then 32, had seemed in serious jeopardy a year earlier, after his heroin addiction got him fired from Miles Davis’ group. As a rising star of the tenor saxophone – the man who had lit up a clutch of Davis albums recorded for both Prestige and Columbia during 1955-56 – the high-flying Coltrane seemed an indispensable component of the trumpeter’s band, but the shock of...