John Coltrane: it’s hard not to become transfixed by his playing: Five Videos

Listening to John Coltrane, it’s hard not to become transfixed by his playing. He was breathtaking, especially in the 1960s.

The music was muscular, intellectual, earthy and heroic, with each musician in his quartet bringing the highest level of thinking and expression to each performance. Here are five live clips of Coltrane in action:

John Coltrane (ts), Eric Dolphy (as), McCoy Tyner (p), Jimmy Garrison (b) and Elvin Jones (d) playing Coltrane’s Impressions…

John Coltrane (ts), Tyner (p), Garrison (b) and Jones (d) playing Coltrane’s Alabama on Ralph J. Gleason’s West Coast TV show Jazz Casual in 1963. The song was written in response to the bombing of an Alabama church earlier that year that killed four African-American girls…

The same quartet on Gleason’s show playing Coltrane’s Afro Blue…

John Coltrane with the same quartet playing his ballad Naima in 1965…

John Coltrane in 1960 playing with Wynton Kelly (p) Paul Chambers (b) and Jimmy Cobb (dr). Coltrane plays On Green Dolphin Street, Walking’, The Theme, Autumn Leaves and What’s New. Stan Getz plays Moonlight in Vermont, and then Coltrane and Getz play Thelonious Monk’s Hackensack…