A Quote by Kamasi Washington

The fact of the matter is that nobody understands what John Coltrane is doing except John Coltrane. And maybe not even him. So we're all experiencing it on this subconscious level.

Kamasi Washington

Quote Topics

Coltrane Doing Even Except Experiencing Fact Him John Level Matter Maybe Nobody Subconscious Understands

Quote Author

Kamasi Washington
American - Musician
Born: February 18, 1981

You know, John Coltrane has been sort of a god to me. Seems like, in a way, he didn't get the inspiration out of other musicians. He had it. When you hear a cat do a thing like that, you got to go along with him. I think I heard Coltrane before I really got close to Miles [Davis]. Miles had a tricky way of playing his horn that I didn't understand as much as I did Coltrane. I really didn't understand what Coltrane was doing, but it was so exciting the thing that he was doing.

Wes Montgomery

As much as I think John Coltrane belongs on the list, I think without Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, both of whom defined improvising on the tenor sax, there would not have been the evolution of the craft by John Coltrane.

Herbie Mann

John Brown was the abolitionist to end all abolitionists. People thought he was crazy. He was like John Coltrane playing free jazz, exhausting all possibilities in his approach to harmony and improvisation.

James McBride

Dilla was a John Coltrane-type dude. He was always on a higher level. He inspired my music to become looser and more soulful.

Madlib

... We borrowed it all from Coltrane. I started encouraging everybody in the band to listen to John Coltrane - 'Check it out, see what these guys do.' They take one chord, the tonic chord, and just play all over it. 'We can do that too!' I wanted to make our music something really amazing - I wanted it to be jaw-dropping and turn on a dime and do all of those things that I knew music could do, and nobody told us we couldn't do it. I shouldn't say 'I,' though - Jerry Garcia was behind it the whole way.

Phil Lesh

All John Coltrane's records are amazing.

Kamasi Washington

[John Coltrane] liked my qualities as a person and that's the reason why he let me play with him. It wasn't what I was doing musically or my instrument or anything like that. He let me play whatever I wanted to play.

Pharoah Sanders

I love, you know, a lot of jazz, John Coltrane.

Rakim

I'm aware of Yusef Lateef and Sun Ra and John Coltrane. My music cup runneth over. I try to encourage people: don't cut anything off, don't limit yourself. Give it a good listen: you might find something in that goofy Sun Ra noise, that dissonance. Before I learned 'official musicality' - which you should avoid at all costs - I listened to some Sun Ra and Yusef Lateef and John Coltrane and that's where 'Journey to the Center of the Mind' came from. When you intentionally and aggressively pursue musical communication with those powerfully impactful musical geniuses, you will pick up something.

Ted Nugent

When I have to compete with John Coltrane and Miles Davis and Louie Armstrong on iTunes, which I'm doing now, that's a problem. That means that jazz is not being heard by younger audiences.

Robert Glasper

I try to make my flow sound like a John Coltrane solo.

Rakim

Listen to John Coltrane. When he plays 'A Love Supreme,' that guy is totally into himself.

Butch Trucks

If you try to have a fashion show with Bach fugues and John Coltrane, it doesn't really work.

Isaac Mizrahi

My aunt Ruth Brown was a jazz musician. I got hooked on it at a young age, understanding what John Coltrane was doing playing two notes on the saxophone at the same time, which is impossible.

Rakim

My dad was really into avant garde jazz: Archie Shepp, John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders.

Kamasi Washington

I think John Coltrane is one of the great American heroes, like Abraham Lincoln and Emily Dickinson.