When I was a kid, long before I came to New York, John Coltrane was the man. Never as colorful as Charlie Parker, nonetheless he embodied the same sort of Nietzchian ideal I had at the time of the figure standing outside and above society, creating on his own rules, his own metaphysics as it were. John Coltrane was a man dedicated to his music. Someone recounted walking past the open window of his Harlem apartment in the morning and hearing him practice scales, holding each note for a couple of seconds, then walking past a few hours later to hear Coltrane practicing the same scale, but at blinding speed. It was said he could practice scales eight hours a day, every day.
It’s been a long time since I read John Coltrane’s bio and after reading his Wikipedia entry (what else), I was surprised to find out he was not actually born and raised in New York, but grew up in North Carolina (and served in the Navy) and got his start in Philidelphia before coming to New York with Miles Davis. Nonetheless, his sound has always meant New York to me.
With Miles Davis, another transplanted New Yorker, playing the timeless ‘So What’. Look at the class those guys had. I really wish the next sub-culture movement would take up styling like this. ‘Cause these guys had STYLE.
