(QUEEN CITY NEWS) – Music legend John Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North Carolina in 1926.
Coltrane is known as one of the most talented and creative figures in the history of jazz.
During the 1940s and ‘50s, he developed his craft as a saxophonist and composer.
He famously worked alongside Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis.
Coltrane became famous for his distinctive sound and ability to play several notes at once. He described his technique as starting in the middle of a sentence and moving both directions at once.
The musician died from liver cancer in 1967.
In 1982, he received a posthumous Grammy for the live recording of “Bye Bye Blackbird.”
In 1997, the Recording Academy gave Coltrane the Grammy’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2007, Pulitzer Prize Board Members also awarded the musician a special posthumous citation.