What prompts artists to evolve even after they find a system that has brought them success? Why not stay with what obviously works? The fact is, what works on a commercial level is not always what works on a personal level in the heart of the artist. At times it is this initial commercial popularity that furnishes them with the necessary poetic freedom to choose a route closer tothe heart. Jazz saxophone legend John Coltrane sought continual evolution in his musical style much as The Beatles redefined rock from album to album. Yet the distance they traveled from two-chord simplicity to Sergeant Pepper-era psychedelia seems short in comparison to Coltrane's journey from hard-bop saxist to non-standard improviser to dying prophet. It was his change in religious faith that prompted him to increasingly drift from traditional jazz saxophone playing. Conversely, it was also this change in playing style that helped propel the development of his religious beliefs. Coltrane's initiative to break traditional boundaries fueled his desire to give the listener and performer alike the experience of the sacred.

So why don't all saxophonists experience similar religious awakenings? Coltrane's employment of such surpassingly physically rigorous methods in his performances is the source. Coltrane's signature became based on extremely complex phrases which have been described as "preternaturally long." This style combined with Coltrane's increased use of overblowing techniques (in which air is blown so forcefully that the saxophone shrieks) facilitated the buildup of CO2 in his body allowing for the release of Huxley's visionary "Mind at Large". Trane also insisted on playing longer, tripling the typical jazz set to frequently more than three hours.Bill Cole, author of John Coltrane, remembers seeing Trane "play one piece, soloing for as long as two hours, only to come down from the stage to practice by himself before starting up again" (171). Cole also reflected on a conversation between himself and Coltrane's pianist McCoy Tyner in which he was told that "in San Francisco Trane once played so long and so intensely that he burst a blood vessel in his nose and didn't even notice until Tyner pointed it out to him" (171).