Alice Coltrane - S/D

:(((((

Oh, man. This is so sad.

http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?p=579829

my first thought is just like with Octavia Butler - at least we have one last work to explore that she left with us before she died.

I am going to put on "Journey In Satchidananda" now and maybe even cry a bit.

this one really comes as a surprise.

I had been listening to Lord Of Lords this morning (for the first time) and wasn't feeling her string arrangements. I mentioned how "corny and Cecil B. DeMille" they were to a friend later tonight and that was that. I feel terrible because I love Alice Coltrane's music and this was unexpected.

She lived a beautiful, full life.

the punchline writes itself i think...

alice c and michael b in the space of one weekend...not my idea of an impulse clearout... :-(

Back at work today, seeing this thread re-emerge - and being in that 'Universal Consciousness mode' which her music always seems to inspire in me - I was quite expectant to see somebody writing about a near identical experience. Quite a jolt to read such sad news in its place.

I thought she'd be around forever. She probably will be.

But surely, the level of tribute should be raised a little higher than the "holy shit what a bummer"

Anyway, listened to Eternity on the way to work today--really amazing stuff. She really was one-of-a-kind, as cliched as that might be. With her recent activity, I was hoping to catch her in concert one of these days...Are there plans afoot to release any of those shows last year? Maybe as a DVD? They sounded like cool concerts...And what's this about a big compilation of her stuff from Universal? Hadn't heard anything about that...

By Teresa Wiltz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 15, 2007; B06

Alice Coltrane, 69, a jazz pianist-harpist-composer who was the widow of saxophonist John Coltrane and retired from the world of secular music to become a spiritual leader and guru in the Vedantic philosophic tradition, has died.

Mrs. Coltrane, who died Jan. 12 at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles of respiratory failure, was a child prodigy from a working-class Detroit family.

Born Alice McCleod in 1937, she grew up steeped in the rigors of classical music, playing in church choirs, music halls, funerals, weddings, wherever and whenever she could. "Music," she told The Washington Post in October, "was just in my heart, somehow."

In time, her older half brother, Ernie Farrow, a respected bassist, introduced her to bebop. She was immediately entranced. As a teenager, she gigged with saxophonists Cannonball Adderley and Sonny Stitt.

After studying briefly in Paris with pianist Bud Powell, who melded jazz and classical sounds, Mrs. Coltrane moved to New York and joined a group led by jazz vibraphonist Terry Gibbs.

Few outside the jazz world knew her for the highly gifted musician and composer she was: An artist in her own right, she was admired for her rumbling arpeggios, for the deep vibrancy of her tone, for her dynamism as an improviser.

She joined John Coltrane's quintet in 1966, replacing pianist McCoy Tyner, and together they explored the limits of avant-garde jazz, marinating in the mysticism of Eastern music, taking her far from her Baptist upbringing.

Theirs was a brief union but one that brought three children and altered her life's trajectory. (Her eldest child, Michelle Coltrane, was the product of her first marriage, to jazz vocalist Kenny "Pancho" Hagood.)

Alice and John Coltrane met in 1962 at the Birdland in New York and quickly formed a fast partnership, two introverted souls who were fascinated with religion, architecture and languages. The couple wed in 1965 in Mexico and made a quiet life in Dix Hills, N.Y.

Her husband, 11 years her senior, introduced her to Eastern religion, meditation and philosophy and pushed her to take up the harp, at the time a rare addition to the jazz canon.

That instrument, along with her ecclesiastical explorations and experimentation with North African and Indian instrumentation, formed the musical basis of her solo albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s: "Journey in Satchidananda," the staple of many a yoga class; "Ptah the El Daoud"; "World Galaxy"; and "Universal Consciousness."

When John Coltrane died in 1967 of liver cancer at age 40, Mrs. Coltrane took a vow of celibacy and immersed herself further into spiritual life, traveling to India to study with spiritual masters such as her guru, Sri Swami Satchidananda, and the Indian sage Sri Satya Sai Baba.

She continued her jazz career for a while, playing the piano, harp and Wurlitzer organ in studio sessions with Jimmy Garrison and Pharoah Sanders, with Rashied Ali and Archie Shepp, and collaborating with Carlos Santana, Laura Nyro, McCoy Tyner and Jack DeJohnette.

In 1978, she decided to commit herself full time to her religious pursuits, though she never abandoned her work managing John Coltrane's estate. She also started the John Coltrane Foundation, which gives scholarships to young musicians.

She took on the Hindu name Turiyasangitananda and founded the Vedantic Center, paying a reported $1.3 million in 1983 for 50 acres of land nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains, about 40 miles from Los Angeles in Agoura Hills. There, she built the Sai Anantam Ashram, a communal living center where her followers could live and study. (Mrs. Coltrane settled with her family in nearby Woodland Hills.)

She never stopped making music, recording spiritual music with her ashram's choir, melding Sanskrit chants with organs and drums and a distinct gospel fervor.

In 2004 she returned to her jazz roots, releasing her last album, the critically acclaimed "Translinear Light," which included the gospel hymns of her Christian childhood, the Hindu hymns of her Vedantic-based beliefs and John Coltrane's compositions.

At the time of her death, she was working on "Sacred Language of Ascension," an album that incorporates Hebrew devotional chants, Vedic culture, Coltrane jazz and orchestral and congregational church music.

Last year, at the urging of her second-eldest son, Ravi, a saxophonist, she performed in four concerts across the country. She played with her sons, Ravi and Oran, as well as bassist Charlie Haden and members of her ashram's choir.

Survivors include her children, Michelle, Ravi and Oran; and five grandchildren. Her eldest son, John Coltrane Jr., died in a car accident in 1982.

Living With The Spirit And Legacy Of JOHN COLTRANE

THE white brick ranch-styled house is tucked inconspicuously behind black wrought-iron gates in Woodland Hills, Calif. Inside, Alice Coltrane, an accomplished jazz musician, sits quietly at the piano, glancing at the photograph of her late husband, the legendary saxophonist, John Coltrane.

It's been more than 20 years since Coltrane's death, and yet the memories are vivid and strong as thoughts of him still consume her.

"I can't miss him," she says. "He's here. I feel him here."

John Coltrane, long considered ahead of his time musically, was one of the jazz world's most innovative musicians. He worked with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk early in his career. Known as "Trane" to his friends, he went on to form his own band in the 1950s, playing radical harmonic and melodic changes that some music critics called "sheets of sound."

For four years, John and Alice Coltrane lived as husband and wife, creating "avant garde" jazz until Coltrane's untimely death in 1967. He died from liver cancer at the age of 41. Coltrane's influence over Alice, much like the musical idolatry from his fans, is remarkably strong.

Alice Coltrane claims to have spoken to her dead husband. "I see him physically in my room while I'm in a transcendental state," she says.

The first time she saw Coltrane, she says, was about a month after he died. "I was sitting in my bedroom meditating when the door opened and Coltrane walked in. He had an instrument that looked like the soprano sax he used to play," she recalls. "He was playing it. Sometimes he looked better than when he was alive."

She saw her husband on occasion over a 12-year period, Mrs. Coltrane says. It's been nine years now since she last spoke to John, and she believes it's because he's been reincarnated and is living in his next life.

She admits that many people may find her accounts to be unlikely. "I know people don't understand or believe what I'm saying," she says. "All I can say to them is to mediate and find out for themselves."

Alice McLeod Coltrane was born in Detroit in 1937, growing up in a musical family. She became an accomplished pianist, studying under the jazz pianist Bud Powell and later playing with major musicians.

In 1963, she met John coltrane in a jazz club in Europe, and what began as professional adoration soon gave way to romance. The two were married a year later, and Alice joined her husband's band in 1966 replacing pianist McCoy Tyner. Both Coltrane and his wife became deeply religious and began studying the music and religions of the East--especially India.

It seems ironic that the woman, once intensely devoted to her music, has cast it aside for what she calls "the path of devotion and understanding." She stopped touring extensively 12 years ago and cut herself off from most of her friends. "Some of it was due to location and distance," she offers. "With some, I just didn't call or correspond."

Now, Mrs. Coltrane keeps herself busy with the Vedantic Center, a spiritual center she founded 14 years ago in Agoura, Calif. As the center's director, she holds the title of swami. She also produces a spiritual half-hour television program, which is shown in the spring on Los Angeles' Channel 18.

Although she no longer performs regularly, Mrs. Coltrane carries on her late husband's music through the "John Coltrane Festival." The festival, which is funded through Coltrane's estate, highlights the work and talents of young musicians.

The Coltrane children have followed in their parents' musical footsteps. Michelle, 28; Ravi, 23, and Oran, 21, live in the Los Angeles area, spending their time studying and developing music and frequently attending their mother's spiritual services at the center. (The couple's first born son, John Jr., died in 1982).

She doesn't spend too much time in the "music room," which seems more like a shrine to her fallen hero. The room is the exact replica of the music room in the couple's former home in New York. Everything is in place, the grand piano, the Persian rugs, the many African instruments and Coltrane's numerous awards. Ironically, there is not a single saxophone in the room. One of his saxophones is stored in a back room of the house. The others are used by his sons and a nephew.

For Mrs. Coltrane there are many pleasant memories of her late husband, and for those reasons, she never remarried. "I don't know that I'd want to live in the proximity with less a man," she says... "I could never marry again."

There is talk of recording and performing again. Alice hasn't done so in 12 years. But more than anything else, she longs for others to appreciate Coltrane's musical accomplishments as much as she does. "John needed to take music to a new level," she says. "That's why when you listen to John Coltrane, you hear everything. Everything was in his music. That's why it's important for people to never forget the contributions he made."

COPYRIGHT 1989 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Tyler's link above is well worth looking at. The obit and article quoted above are a bit prosaic, aren't they?

Links to more writing on Alice Coltrane, or more obituaries, would be welcome, if anyone has any.

I listened to Eternity again last night, not having heard it for ages, and Om Supreme (which is just piano and voices) is wonderful. For someone completely anti-religious, I find stuff like this really powerful and affecting. I even love the sleeve notes, which in any other context I would dismiss as complete crap.