The story of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane (1926-1967), from his North Carolina childhood, to his years as a music student in Philadelphia, to his learning to play be-bop in the style of Charlie Parker, to his work as a sideman for some of the all-time jazz greats -- such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Theloniou Monk -- to his formation of what has come to be called his classic quartet and, toward the end of his life, his experimental work of the late 1960s.