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48 pp.
| Clarion
| October, 2012
|
TradeISBN 978-0-547-23994-1$17.99
(2)
4-6
Illustrated by
Rudy Gutierrez.
This picture-book biography (best for older children and young teens) successfully describes Coltrane's music and what made it distinctive. The sophisticated illustrations show faces with almost photographic realism, while the lines depicting the background scenes are intentionally distorted and abstracted into swirling shapes. Thus the art ingeniously gets across the story's intangibles: Coltrane's pain, his drug-addled mind, his spirituality, and his music. Discography, reading list, website.
32 pp.
| Holt
| April, 2008
|
TradeISBN 978-0-8050-7994-4$16.95
(2)
K-3
Illustrated by
Sean Qualls.
In four-line stanzas Weatherford lists the sounds and experiences that made young Coltrane into the great musician he became. Qualls's paintings show John listening, focusing, soaking it all in. By the end, he's making his own music, and the collage, acrylic, and pencil illustrations shift from the realistic to shapes and colors evoking music. An appended author's note includes selected listening. Reading list.
112 pp.
| Morgan
| November, 2001
|
LibraryISBN 1-883846-57-9$$20.95
(3)
YA
Masters of Music series.
This is a sympathetic biographical portrait of an innovative and influential jazz sax player whose life was tragically cut short by liver cancer. Barron details Coltrane's associations with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and other jazz greats, as well as discussing his two marriages. The coverage of Coltrane's life is well balanced by thoughtful analysis of his music. Bib., ind.