Alice Coltrane died today at age 69. An obituary can be found online here. I hope there will be more information and tributes available tomorrow.
John Coltrane’s late-period music is profoundly important to me and Alice’s piano (and sometimes harp) playing is an integral element of its beauty and meaning. After John’s death in 1967, Alice went on to record a bunch of wonderful records for Impulse! including A Monastic Trio (1968), Ptah, The El Daoud (1970), Journey in Satchidananda (1970), and Universal Consciousness (1971). All of these records are readily available on nicely re-mastered CDs that are well worth hearing. In fact, I am listening to them all in chronological order as write this and they are all truly sublime.
I’m a lot less familiar with the Warner Bros. albums she made after that. I believe some of this stuff has been reissued recently and I intend to check it out.
Eventually, Alice Coltrane’s spiritual journey led her away from the commercial music world to form an ashram in California. The music that Alice Coltrane would perform in this period was purely devotional and made available only to initiates. Through my step-mother-in-law, Katie Atherton, I have a cassette tape of some of this music and it is beautiful, but strictly functional music for religious ceremony. I think I’ll dig that tape out and listen to it again. It would be interesting to further explore this “non-public” portion of Ms. Coltrane’s oeuvre.
After a 26 year long hiatus, Alice Coltrane returned to Impulse! with 2004’s Translinear Light. I would look at it at the record store, but I never bothered to pick it up - I’d read reviews that said it was a little “smooth” compared to her 70s records – but it was nice to know she was again making music, now with her sons Ravi and Avram Coltrane. I am now, belatedly, going to seek it out.
Music – art – aspires to immortality. While the artist passes away from this world, their work remains behind so that others may know that such transcendence is possible. I look forward to devoting some time to Alice Coltrane’s art and thereby celebrate her life.
Rodger, you're on blogging fire this weekend!
ReplyDeleteFabulous. You keep inspiring me to seek out new music ... and I thank you for that.
By the way, I was looking for some Irish music to compliment the vast collection of Colombian/Salsa/Latin music we have here in the house (for my daughters benefit mostly) and I came across a really fabulous band called Solas. They totally rock the classics but they are not at all an irish pub band. They also are pretty well respected from what I have read. And the funniest part is that the absolutely kicking fiddler is Win Horan. Go ahead, think back to the mean seasons at NEC and you'll recall who I am talking about. Nice to see one of the good ones out there doing good stuff.
Christopher
Rodger, I can only echo what Chris sez...how am I going to keep up with all these posts?!
ReplyDeleteRe: Alice Coltrane's "Translinear Light"--I would hold off before committing $ to this. Tim lent me this just last night, and on first listening (not an ideal listening, granted) it sounds pretty new-agey and, yes, smooth. Check out samples first if possible. Too e-z listening for me...I just got this Coltrane 1966 Temple University concert (MP3 download but have not seen it anywhere else)...now that's what I'm talking about!! For me Alice will live forever in her wonderful piano playing on all the late Coltrane concerts and studio albums. "Stellar Regions," live in Japan...
I should listen to more of her early solo stuff, to be sure. I had never heard of the religious stuff you mentioned.
But did she ever transcend her work with John?