Alice Coltrane

Alice Coltrane (* 27. August 1937 in Detroit , Michigan , USA as Alice McLeod ; † 12. January 2007 in Los Angeles ) was an American jazz musician . She played the piano , organ and harp . Her piano playing, like her harp playing, was shaped by arpeggios , her organ playing by long notes .

Live and act

Alice McLeod studied classical music , came to jazz through her brother, bassist Ernie Farrow , and learned jazz piano with Bud Powell when she and her first husband Kenneth "Pancho" Hagood (married 1960), a bebop scat singer, from whom she divorced soon after was in Paris. In Detroit she played with her trio or in sessions with jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell and saxophonist Lucky Thompson . From 1962 to 1963 she played in the band of vibraphonist Terry Gibbs . On tour, she met tenor saxophonist John Coltrane , lived with him and married him in 1966 after divorcing his first wife Naima. From 1965 she had replaced McCoy Tyner in Coltrane's quartet .

After the death of her husband in June 1967 she continued to work with his musicians, such as Pharoah Sanders , Jimmy Garrison , Elvin Jones and Rashied Ali . Charlie Haden and Carlos Santana ( Illuminations ) also worked in their own ensembles . At the beginning of the 1970s she turned back to the organ in order to create the most continuous, meditative sound possible. Her albums such as A Monastic Trio (1968), Ptah, the El Daoud (1970) or Astral Meditations (1966/71) appeared on the Impulse label ! after she had agreed with the management of ABC-Paramount that the unpublished material from the estate of John Coltrane at Impulse! to publish. In 1972 the album Universal Consciousness was released , which in 1998 was included in The Wire 's list of “ 100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening) ” . She plays the Wurlitzer organ there and the string arrangements are by Ornette Coleman . From the mid-1970s she moved to Warner Brothers and recorded four albums.

John and Alice Coltrane had three children together: drummer John Coltrane Jr. (* 1964), who died in a car accident in 1982, and saxophonists Ravi (* 1965) and Oran Coltrane (* 1967). Occasionally she also worked with her daughter from her marriage to Hagood, the singer Miki Coltrane (Michelle Coltrane). Since about 1969 she had turned to Eastern religions , now called herself Swami Turyasangitananda or Turiya and lived most of the time in an ashram . Her guru was Swami Satchidananda from 1970 and later Sathya Sai Baba . She founded her own Vedanta Center in San Francisco , which she later relocated to the Agoura Hills northwest of Los Angeles. Occasionally she performed with her son Ravi. Since 1980 only a few recordings have been made, most of which were strongly influenced by Indian music, such as Translinear Light , published in 2004 by Impulse , on which Jack DeJohnette , Charlie Haden and James Genus also worked with their sons Ravi and Oran Coltrane. From 2004, she only sold her recordings privately and for religious purposes.

Alice Coltrane was also instrumental in the rediscovery of recordings made by the late John Coltrane (such as Interstellar Space or Stellar Regions ). She was admitted to a hospital in Los Angeles in early 2007 with lung problems, where she died.

literature

Franya Berkman: Monument Eternal: The Music of Alice Coltrane . Wesleyan University Press, Middletown 2010, ISBN 978-0-8195-6925-7
Alice Coltrane. Communing With the Astral, Spiritual and Tuneful . In: New York Times , October 24, 2006; meeting
Alice Coltrane, Jazz Artist and Spiritual Leader, Dies at 69 . In: New York Times , January 15, 2007
The pain that leads to enlightenment . In: Berliner Zeitung , January 16, 2007
the bottom line . In: taz , January 16, 2007

Web links

Official website
Britt Robson, Universal Consciousness: The spiritual awakening of Alice Coltrane , May 3, 2016
Discography ( Memento from October 12, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
Alice in man's land . Zeit online , January 16, 2007
Alice Coltrane at Discogs (English)

References and comments

↑ Miki Coltrane was born in 1960, learned classical violin, moved to Los Angeles in the early 1990s, where she worked as a jazz singer with pianist Scott Hiltzik and released an album, I Think of You (Chartmaker Records 1997). In 1996 she performed with the McCoy Tyner Trio at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Jazztimes to Miki Coltrane , January 5, 1998. She later married and called herself Michelle Carbonell-Coltrane.

personal data
SURNAME	Coltrane, Alice
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	McLeod, Alice (maiden name); Swami Turyasangitananda (Indian name); Turiya (short form of the Indian name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH	August 27, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH	Detroit , Michigan , USA
DATE OF DEATH	January 12, 2007
Place of death	los Angeles

[1] Miki Coltrane was born in 1960, learned classical violin, moved to Los Angeles in the early 1990s, where she worked as a jazz singer with pianist Scott Hiltzik and released an album, I Think of You (Chartmaker Records 1997). In 1996 she performed with the McCoy Tyner Trio at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Jazztimes to Miki Coltrane , January 5, 1998. She later married and called herself Michelle Carbonell-Coltrane.