R.I.P. Alice Coltrane 1937-2007

Alice Coltrane - Stopover Bombay (mp3) - Journey in Satchidananda (Impulse 1970)

Alice Coltrane - Blue Nile (mp3) - Ptah, the El Daoud (Impulse 1970)

Alice Coltrane - Oh Allah - Universal Consciousness (Impulse 1971)

Alice Coltrane - Walk With Me - Translinear Light (Impulse/Verve 2004)

So I just learned that Alice Coltrane passed away. This absolutely sends me into a deep state of sighing because she is easily one of my favorite artists ever and discovering her music was one of the defining moments in shaping my musical taste. She died at 69 on Friday in California from respiratory failure, an irony since she breathed so much life into the music she so masterfully made.

Most renown as the wife of John Coltrane, Alice McLeod was an amazing pianist, harpist, organist, songwriter, arranger and defining character in her own right. In her early twenties she was playing piano in local Detroit bebop bands with future luminaries like Yusef Lateef and Kenny Burrell before leaving for Paris to study with Bud Powell at 22. She didn’t meet John until around 62, married him in 65, joined his band (replacing the formidable McCoy Tyner) in 66 and was by his side when he died in 67. No doubt being an incredibly strong influence in his waning years, in which he drifted towards free jazz, Alice was an incredibly important force in the spiritual-oriented and earthly jazz class that included many players from her own band including Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Rashied Ali and Joe Henderson among others. Her Impulse albums like Journey in Satchidananda and Universal Consciousness bent towards Eastern religious influences and were renown for their deep textural sound that can easily hypnotize the listener into a meditative tunnel. She easily balanced earthy drones with glittering percussion and free-spirited sax, piano and drum solos combining the will of free jazz with beautiful sounds. She left music for a period in the late 70s and 80s, but returned to performing live with her son Ravi in the late 90s. Her last proper full-length (she was apparently working on a new album before her death) after a 26-year hiatus was the amazing Translinear Light in 2004 for Verve which just further solidified her as an aesthetically pleasing musician, composer and life-force.

I truly hope she gains the legendary status that her husband has been rightfully garnished with, because she absolutely deserves it. Jazz and music in general lost one of their most important contemporary innovators in Ms. Coltrane, but at least we’ll always have her amazing records to be able to appreciate her genius and influence our own lives.