This week, John Coltrane would have turned one hundred. To mark the centenary, I’m releasing a full note-for-note transcription of his solo on “If I Were a Bell,” taken from Relaxin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet. It’s the track that opens the album, and it catches Coltrane playing a jazz standard at a pivotal moment in his career.
It matters to me that this is only the second Coltrane transcription project on sax.coach. Sadly, only the second. For a saxophonist who reshaped the whole instrument, that feels like a debt worth paying, and his hundredth birthday is the right week to start.
Here’s the context. Relaxin’, Workin’ and Cookin’ were cut over just two days for the Prestige label. Two days. Miles Davis, Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones walked in as a working band, played the music they played on the bandstand every night, and walked out with three classic records. No overdubs. No second takes. These are one-take wonders, and you can hear every ounce of it.
This is not the polished ‘Trane of the early and mid sixties. He’s younger here, hungrier, still building the language he would later master. That makes it the perfect place to study how Coltrane actually solos over a standard.
This one is for the intermediate and advanced player ready to transcribe seriously. You’ll work through his reading of the melody, his approach to the solo break, and his lines over both major and minor ii-V progressions. These are the changes every jazz saxophonist has to own. Learning them straight from Coltrane’s tenor, phrase by phrase, is the fastest way in.
Let’s get to work.
