Influence on John Coltrane’s Work

Much has been written about Dennis Sandole’s musical and personal relationship to
his pupil John Coltrane. Below are quotes from various sources that describe
Sandole’s influence on Coltrane’s musical and conceptual development:
By 1951 or 1952, John Coltrane was familiar with Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of
Scales and Melodic Patterns which he had learned about from his theory teacher
Dennis Sandole, who was interested in scalar approaches to music. [115]
Sandole also exposed Coltrane to what the former called “exotic scales — scales
from every ethnic culture.” Coltrane absorbed the principles of Nicolas Slonimsky’s
influential Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns, but he also partook of
Sandole’s Scale Lore, an unpublished book that differed from Slonimsky’s in that it
was less analytical and more aural in approach; ...It embodied an open and eclectic
outlook, which enhanced Coltrane’s own searching inclinations, his constant pursuit
of new sounds, form, and technique. Coltrane hand-copied the book’s useful pages
and evidently remained close to Sandole for many years. [116]
Sandole, a legendary figure, and teacher, became a mentor to Coltrane. Sandole
remembers Coltrane fondly: “He used to take two legitimate (classical) lessons per
week, not one. He was superbly prepared for each one. He was superlatively gifted,
you know. I mostly teach a maturing of concepts, and it involves advanced harmonic
techniques you can apply to any instrument. Coltrane went through eight years of my
literature in four years. And we became excellent friends — we had dinner together
once a week.” [117]
Coltrane was theory-mad. He had studied third-related harmonic relationships with
Dennis Sandole at the Granoff School, and, as we have seen, there was a hint of the
device in his composition “Nita,” recorded on Paul Chambers’ Whims of Chambers
three years earlier. [118]
Theorist Donald Chittum states in his paper “Mozart, Wagner, and Coltrane,” that
Coltrane’s “most important studies were done with Sandole,” and that “it is most
probable that Sandole, more than anyone else, was responsible for Coltrane’s
embarking on a study of classical music, especially that of the twentieth century.”
[119] The topics Coltrane studied with Sandole, including but not limited to
“pentatonic and modal scales, bitonality and polychordality, pedalpoint and cluster
harmony, and harmony derived from melodic lines, a device closely associated with
serial music,” [120] are among those areas Coltrane went on to innovate in
concerning jazz improvisational practice. Sandole also had Coltrane practice from
harp books to

extend his range on the tenor saxophone [121] and might have been one of those that
suggested the soprano saxophone to Coltrane. [122] It is also plausible that it was
Sandole who introduced Coltrane to Slonimsky’s Thesaurus as this was a text with
which Sandole was quite familiar [123] and one that Pat Martino learned about from
Sandole during their brief studies in the late 1950s, which is where Martino
himself met Coltrane. [124]
Example 54 is a handwritten sheet from John Coltrane notating some of Sandole’s
harmonic principles. Coltrane’s writing is in print and Sandole’s is in cursive.
This document was given to student Arnez Hayes by Sandole in 1993, who said that
Sandole told him that Coltrane was “very young” when he wrote it, [125] perhaps
indicating that the document dates back to his studies with Sandole at the Granoff
Studios. Sandole makes reference to a similar document in Lewis Porter’s John
Coltrane: His Life and Music regarding a handwritten document of Coltrane’s,
stating, “I had substitute chords based on dominant to minor in (Coltrane’s)
handwriting — he copied it. I found it in one of my old books, but I can’t find it
anymore.” [126]