John Coltrane would have been 100 in 2026. His influence stretches far beyond jazz — shaping popular music from rock to hip hop. Bono even sang of A Love Supreme in U2’s Angel of Harlem. Dan Forshaw and his Quintet mark the centenary with a night of Coltrane’s fire and vision.

Coltrane’s story is one of transformation. From his Navy days playing bebop, he rose into Miles Davis’s first great quintet, only to be sacked in 1957 for heroin use. His comeback with Thelonious Monk produced a new sophistication, before he rejoined Miles to shape the best-selling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue.

Soon after, Coltrane took Giant Steps with his legendary quartet — McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones — setting new standards of power and intensity. By the early 1960s he was pushing into the avant garde, music that was raw, searching, and spiritual. His death at just 40 in 1967 led Miles Davis to say that jazz itself had died.