[TheOtherHobbes]

There are features described with math, but if you try to approach music purely as math it evaporates.

DSP uses a lot of actual math for processing and synthesis. But trad music's chords, rhythms, melodies, and forms are linguistic grammars that can be annotated mathematically after they're defined.

The creation process isn't mathematical. Composers are always making choices from possibilities, and the choices rely on subjective taste.

With Coltrane there a lot of similar structures he could have used, and likely experimented with.

But he picked this particular one for subjective creative reasons.