Trane was the Jimi Hendrix
of '60's jazz, imo. Every horn player that I knew was greatly influenced by his approach. In much the same way that Bird affected every player on EVERY instrument, Coltrane did much the same in the modern era, by seeming to stack his sound "vertically." At one time it was referred to as "sheets of sound" because of the way he explored the totality of every chord, in what felt like rolling waves of sound. But unlike other free jazz players, he never lost sight of the chord and always had a piano player in his groups as a reminder of the "changes." At the end of his career, Alice McLoed (Coltrane), his wife, was that piano player.