In his late period, Coltrane showed an interest in the avant-garde jazz of Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, and Sun Ra.
He was especially influenced by the dissonance of Ayler's trio with bassist Gary Peacock, who had worked with Paul Bley, and drummer Sunny Murray, whose playing was honed with Cecil Taylor as leader.
Coltrane championed many young free jazz musicians such as Archie Shepp, and under his influence Impulse!
became a leading free jazz label.

After A Love Supreme was recorded, Ayler's style became more prominent in Coltrane's music.
A series of recordings with the Classic Quartet in the first half of 1965 show Coltrane's playing becoming abstract, with greater incorporation of devices like multiphonics, use of overtones, and playing in the altissimo register, as well as a mutated return of Coltrane's sheets of sound.
In the studio, he all but abandoned soprano saxophone to concentrate on tenor.
The quartet responded by playing with increasing freedom.
The group's evolution can be traced through the albums The John Coltrane Quartet Plays, Living Space, Transition, New Thing at Newport, Sun Ship, and First Meditations.

In June 1965, he went into Van Gelder's studio with ten other musicians (including Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Freddie Hubbard, Marion Brown, and John Tchicai) to record Ascension, a 38-minute piece that included solos by young avant-garde musicians.
The album was controversial primarily for the collective improvisation sections that separated the solos.
After recording with the quartet over the next few months, Coltrane invited Sanders to join the band in September 1965.
While Coltrane frequently used overblowing as an emotional exclamation-point, Sanders "was involved in the search for 'human' sounds on his instrument," employing "a tone which blasted like a blow torch" and drastically expanding the vocabulary of his horn by employing multiphonics, growling, and "high register squeals [that] could imitate not only the human song but the human cry and shriek as well."
Regarding Coltrane's decision to add Sanders to the band, Gary Giddins wrote "Those who had followed Coltrane to the edge of the galaxy now had the added challenge of a player who appeared to have little contact with earth."
In his late period, Coltrane showed an interest in the avant-garde jazz of Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, and Sun Ra. He was especially influenced by the dissonance of Ayler's trio with bassist Gary Peacock, who had worked with Paul Bley, and drummer Sunny Murray, whose playing was honed with Cecil Taylor as leader. Coltrane championed many young free jazz musicians such as Archie Shepp, and under his influence Impulse! became a leading free jazz label.
After A Love Supreme was recorded, Ayler's style became more prominent in Coltrane's music. A series of recordings with the Classic Quartet in the first half of 1965 show Coltrane's playing becoming abstract, with greater incorporation of devices like multiphonics, use of overtones, and playing in the altissimo register, as well as a mutated return of Coltrane's sheets of sound. In the studio, he all but abandoned soprano saxophone to concentrate on tenor. The quartet responded by playing with increasing freedom. The group's evolution can be traced through the albums The John Coltrane Quartet Plays, Living Space, Transition, New Thing at Newport, Sun Ship, and First Meditations.
In June 1965, he went into Van Gelder's studio with ten other musicians (including Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Freddie Hubbard, Marion Brown, and John Tchicai) to record Ascension, a 38-minute piece that included solos by young avant-garde musicians. The album was controversial primarily for the collective improvisation sections that separated the solos. After recording with the quartet over the next few months, Coltrane invited Sanders to join the band in September 1965. While Coltrane frequently used overblowing as an emotional exclamation-point, Sanders "was involved in the search for 'human' sounds on his instrument," employing "a tone which blasted like a blow torch" and drastically expanding the vocabulary of his horn by employing multiphonics, growling, and "high register squeals [that] could imitate not only the human song but the human cry and shriek as well." Regarding Coltrane's decision to add Sanders to the band, Gary Giddins wrote "Those who had followed Coltrane to the edge of the galaxy now had the added challenge of a player who appeared to have little contact with earth."
John Coltrane