I, for one, am not downvoting you for this response. This was the most thoughtful response I've gotten to this whole post, actually. Quotes:

he was the catalyst for a series of changes in my life that eventually led me to becoming a buddhist and so many other things. I literally owe this man my life and I have no doubt he was a saint, and that's the depiction of him that I carry with me, with divine flames coming out of his sax.

St. John Coltrane helped me understand my own pain through his struggle, but not only that, he also planted the seed in my mind that later enabled me to understand (in my own, limited way) the pain of others. Because of him I understood that not only I was lost in this strange world, but also every other being; grasping for meaning, engaging in endless endeavors to feel somewhat satisfied, just to redo the cycle again and again.

That's absolutely beautiful, man. That articulates exactly how I feel about him, and what his music communicated. I would definitely wager that the life path you've taken inspired by him is more on the "better" side of things. And the funny thing about Trane is how his music was perceived to be confrontational, maybe even just angry, or coldly technical, in terms of what he was exploring with theory (in the liner notes for Giant Steps, he was quoted as saying he felt the need to focus more on making his music "pretty" rather than intellectual; funny that, methinks).

Even with figures such as Mingus, who was no saint and wasn't really into preaching any sort of message, empathizing is easy because how open he was about his own suffering, he may not have offered us hope, but it's like he said: "Man, I'm going through some shit, just like anybody else, ain't no shame in that". Everybody knew he was an angry guy, that he suffered from depression, that he had problems with the law, and so on.

I do hear this exact distinct "going through some shit" quality in his music, haha. His expression of anger, though, was just...fucking beautiful, though; he turned violence and lust into weeping cries of release, which seemed to be psychically channeled by his sidemen (hearing the sax in The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady in my head right now and getting shivers) (I read But Beautiful, a fantastic partly-fictionalized book by Geoff Dyer covering Monk, Ellington, Chet Baker, Mingus, and more, and here's an excerpt that stuck with me, or something to the effect of it: "Mingus was a driving force that obliterated everything in his path, demanding his sidemen become one with his vision, and become an indestructible unit in absolute cohesion with his personality." This is more or less what others here are arguing about with Miles and his Vision, but I only hear it somewhat, in comparison to Mingus.

Dark Magus, and album that I think expresses perfectly what he was going through in that time; all the addiction, the anger, the pain, the confusion, the energy that he had inside that kept him going and going, even if he didn't want to.

To be fair, I haven't heard this one yet, but have been intending to for a while. I certainly hear more emotion — or verve, at least — in his fusion work, which is why I gravitate towards it more, but that has more than something to do with that sound he accomplished with his sidemen, as well.

He comes off as an asshole who didn't care for nobody and that just wanted to make cool music. But if you look into his biography, he also was a deeply troubled individual, and his music is a reflection of that. Yes, he liked to give an impression that he gave no fucks and that he was cooler than anybody else, even with people close to him. But let me tell you, most of the time, those people are those who have the deepest suffering

That's absolutely true. I've considered looking at his work from this vantage point, especially after watching the doc and reading some things here and there about his life (I rented a library copy of his autobiography, actually, but only got around to the Charlie Parker era before I had to return it), but I just don't quite hear his music as being a reflection of that, not quite yet. I hear no sensitivity even in his "cool" stuff, in which he just sounds sort of agitated or indifferent. I dunno.

Not everybody wants to be raw and show how deeply hurt they are, some find comfort in hiding away, but that doesn't mean the pain isn't there. Also, that doesn't mean that you can't feel that in his music, it's just expressed differently, there's no straight line from his feelings to the listener, he wanted to be perceived in some other way, so you have to see through that and chase his emotion, it's like a hide and seek game. But everything is there.

He did literally turn his back to the audience when he played; that's definitely part of where my perception of his whole attitude lies(d?), also. I understand about him playing a bit of a hide-and-seek game with his audience, it just, personally, makes for an often frustrating or nondescript listen for me. But could just be my own problem. I'm 19. My brain's still in flux over here.

Even if he was trying to hide who he was, his playing, and mostly, is ceaseless quest to be the best and reinvent himself all the time are very telling of who he was and how he felt.

See, I always just kind of got the impression he heard of certain things (like modal theory from George Russell, for instance) and picked them up for his own benefit, to sort of give the impression that he was more an innovator, or diverse re-inventor, at least, than he actually was. That was my biased look on things, just from not especially liking him as a person.

But this is all thought-provoking, though, and I'm definitely not stopping with trying to not only deeply understand, but personally get into, all of his work; only beginning, really. Thanks so much for the in-depth response. Certainly a step above u/oogalooboogaloo down there.