To quote Ratliff’s introduction, “This is not a book about Coltrane’s life, but the story of his work”. In fact any details of John Coltrane’s life and work are to be found in the first half of the book, with the second half investigating his influence upon others.
Prior to reading this book I’d known Coltrane only from one of his records I’d nearly forgotten about and the mention of him in Ashley Kahn’s book about Kind of Blue. So although Ratliff doesn't claim to have written a biography to match the great reference work by Lewis Porter (which I haven’t read) he was able to provide me with a lot of information I hadn’t known: that Coltrane started out in a Navy band and worked his way up through varied other influences, becoming ever more committed to mastering the tenor saxophone and music theory; he earned a reputation for practicing far more than others; he was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie and then by Miles Davis before forming his own band which became unusually stable; he became a mixture of spirituality and wild seemingly-chaotic jazz, while never preaching about either; he died at the age of 40 after a career that was in the public spotlight for only a dozen years; his influence extended to rock musicians and Steve Reich; and jazz players to this day find themselves having to confront this influence.
Ratliff is a critic. He’s accustomed, therefore, to viewing music from a distance with a bit of objectivity. But he’s also an insider, to the extent that he knew and interviewed dozens of the people closest to Coltrane or his influence. He’s been able to assemble a book that speaks intelligently about the music — scales, chord changes, etc. — and about what the music meant to people, what direction it was setting. For example, he investigates the unease that Coltrane felt after making his first great hit, Giant Steps with its lightning-fast chord changes, leading to a new focus on melody and a dramatic simplification of harmony. The insights provided by Ratliff and his interviewees give me heart to think that there are still a lot of people out there who think intelligently about music, in this day of ubiquitous wallpaper-music and me-too acts.
There were moments when I felt that Ratliff was assuming we were all on his critical wavelength, understanding (as I did not) statements such as “Branford Marsalis was always careful not to dip too much into Coltrane’s language: he made room for Sonny Rollins and Wayner Shorter and eventually Ben Webster as well”. The reader must either have prior knowledge of these individual languages, or be prepared to accept the statement with suitable reservations.
But in the end, this book made me better appreciate a remarkable man of generous spirit and constant self-criticism, and made me want to listen to more of his music.