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Alice Coltrane

Printed From: JazzMusicArchives.com
Category: Jazz Music Lounges
Forum Name: Jazz Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation
Forum Description: Discuss specific jazz artists/bands and their members or a specific sub-genre
URL: http://www.JazzMusicArchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=26421
Printed Date: 28 Mar 2024 at 6:16am
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Topic: Alice Coltrane
Posted By: FallawayJumper
Subject: Alice Coltrane
Date Posted: 26 Nov 2019 at 5:22am
I've been a fan of jazz for many years and I knew the name Alice Coltrane but I didn't know much about her and hadn't really listened to her music

I got a recommend from YouTube and started listening to her and was greatly impressed with her talent and abilities

I can't help feeling that she is underrated and hasn't gotten her propers because she was a female


this is one of my favorites from her:




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUMuDWDVd20" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUMuDWDVd20









Replies:
Posted By: js
Date Posted: 26 Nov 2019 at 5:48am
Yes, she is a unique talent in her own right, but I would imagine being in the shadow of her famous husband has made it harder for her to be recognized for her own set of skills and vision. She was very much ahead of her time in many ways.


Posted By: snobb
Date Posted: 26 Nov 2019 at 5:49am
I would agree that females are generally underappreciated in jazz. Alice Coltrane is among better known and respected though





Posted By: snobb
Date Posted: 26 Mar 2020 at 12:26pm

Alice Coltrane: where to start in her back catalogue


The album to start with

Journey in Satchidananda (1971)

The first thing to understand about composer and musician Alice Coltrane’s catalogue is that there are no duds. Jump in anywhere and you’ll find variations on the signature sound that developed from her beginnings in bebop jazz, through the spiritual free compositions of the Coltranes as a romantic and spiritual unit ( https://www.theguardian.com/music/john-coltrane" rel="nofollow - John Coltrane died of liver cancer in 1967, four years after they met), to the transcendental sounds of her later divine music.

But you have to start somewhere, so make it Journey in Satchidananda, a mid-point between the modal and meditative, where all the parts of her musical being and biography are present. In its opening (title) track, there are all the aspects of Alice Coltrane’s music – jazz player Cecil McBee lays down a double bass motif, joined by a sharp drone from an Indian tamboura, then Coltrane’s sparkling harp pours in like cool water as Pharoah Sanders’s saxophone dances over the top. It is an audaciously lush theme for her guru, Swami Satchidananda, and like so much of Coltrane’s composition it is positively cinematic, suggesting the opening of luxurious drapes on a panoramic vista. It ought strictly to be called fusion music, with elements taken from Indian music and combined with western traditions, but in Coltrane’s music there are no visible joins – all is bound in cosmic opulence.


The three albums to check out next  

Alice Coltrane with Strings – World Galaxy (1972)

There is a sub-catalogue to this primer, which is the music of John and Alice. They met in 1963 when Alice was on tour as a member of the Terry Gibbs Quartet. After John’s divorce they married and she joined his band, playing on albums including Infinity and Expression. They made one duo album, Cosmic Music. John died suddenly, leaving Alice as a single mother with four children, but she continued to work on the music they had been developing. World Galaxy includes Alice’s renderings of two of John’s signature tunes – it was not the first or the last time she did this, but there is a ferocious power and emotion in these versions of A Love Supreme and My Favorite Things.

Recorded over two days with a 16-piece string orchestra, World Galaxy features Alice playing piano, harp and organ. My Favorite Things starts sweetly but descends into a chaotic breakdown as her organ flares in anxious bursts. The album closes with the salvation of A Love Supreme, which is soothingly narrated by Swami Satchidananda before she lets loose a rude funk upon the standard’s signature motif.


Joe Henderson with https://www.theguardian.com/music/alice-coltrane" rel="nofollow - Alice Coltrane – The Elements (1974)

Coltrane’s own music was always about collaboration, whether with other players or other cultures – this entry could equally have been Ptah the El Daoud, with Pharoah Sanders. The Elements, based on the four elements and recorded with saxophonist Joe Henderson (who also plays on Ptah), is a triumph of concept. Variously credited to Joe Henderson, or Joe Henderson with Alice Coltrane, its first track, Fire, opens with Charlie Haden’s burning bassline, a lick setting up a suite that moves through Air, Water and Earth. It is an immaculately conceived and executed project and Alice’s sound looms large. The pieces all sound like their titles, from the light and ephemeral Air to the fluid and rippling delay deployed on Water and the grounded groove on Earth.


Alice Coltrane-Turiyasangitananda – Divine Songs (1987)

Coltrane later took the spiritual name Turiyasangitananda, which roughly means “the Lord’s highest song of bliss”. By the mid-80s she was recording spiritual music and releasing it as private press tapes on her own Avatar Book Institute. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/03/the-ecstatic-music-of-alice-coltrane-turiyasangitanada-review-truly-numinous-energy" rel="nofollow - Luaka Bop released a double collection of her devotional music in 2017, gathering selections from the albums Divine Songs, Infinite Chants and Glorious Chants (but missing out Turiya Sings, which is also essential).

Divine Songs is the best, a mind-blowing psychedelic vision of what transcendence might sound like. Its lavish string sections and sung chants combine with luminous synths whose pitch arches upwards as if in salutation. It’s an unbeatable cosmic power-up. Coltrane is not often considered the creator of synthesiser masterpieces, but this album demands a reassessment in that respect.


One for the heads

Spiritual Eternal, from Eternity (1976)

Whether she is taking a section of Dvořák and making it a journey through the clouds (Going Home), or playing wild free jazz on Wurlitzer organ and harp, much of Coltrane’s astral wonderland is arguably one for the heads. So rather than sending you to a lost cut, an https://moochinaboutltd.bandcamp.com/album/harp-improvisation" rel="nofollow - unreleased solo performance or a track from her Ashram cassettes that nobody can find unless they’re pro online diggers, here’s Spiritual Eternal, from her one of her most “mainstream” albums, Eternity.

Eternity never gets much credit in her catalogue. It is short and lacks the coherence of her other releases. However, this opening track is wildly underrated, the huge Wurlitzer solo swaddled in strings, like the theme tune to someone parading down a palatial staircase in a silken gown (AKA the perfect soundtrack for waltzing down your own stairs in a dressing gown). What swing! What elegance!

from www.theguardian.com



Posted By: soundfanz
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2020 at 2:52pm
I am a big fan of Alice Coltrane.
Her last album "Translinear Light" is IMO up there among her best work and worth checking out.


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: 30 Dec 2020 at 10:29am
I only have this one...can be some trippy stuff. This version is also Quad compatible, although I don't have that play ability in my system.


https://www.discogs.com/Alice-Coltrane-Reflection-On-Creation-And-Space-A-Five-Year-View/release/12825585" rel="nofollow - https://www.discogs.com/Alice-Coltrane-Reflection-On-Creation-And-Space-A-Five-Year-View/release/12825585



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My jazz collection....a work in progress.


Posted By: js
Date Posted: 30 Dec 2020 at 1:11pm
^ I grabbed up a couple quad amps at thrift stores back in the 90s, fun stuff.


Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: 28 Jan 2021 at 2:23am
Although Journey In Saatchidananda is her best-known album, I'd like to put in a token for the amazing  Ptah, The El-Daoud





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my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....



Posted By: birdtranescoe
Date Posted: 18 Feb 2021 at 10:54am
 



Brief documentary about Detroiter Alice (McLeod) Coltrane - a few years after John's passing.


Posted By: snobb
Date Posted: 18 Feb 2021 at 10:59am
repaired a bit ^ Tongue


Posted By: birdtranescoe
Date Posted: 31 Mar 2021 at 10:28pm
That 'Reflection on Creation and Space' - Somewhere along the way someone must have played it for Pete Townshend as he clearly lifted a section for quadrophenia.


Posted By: js
Date Posted: 31 Mar 2021 at 10:48pm
Which song?


Posted By: birdtranescoe
Date Posted: 31 Mar 2021 at 11:03pm
The piano cadence at the end of The Rock.  *Or maybe it's the prelude in Love Reign o'er Me

*okay maybe he didnt lift it - maybe he used it, or maybe he never heard it Embarrassed

BTW do you recall the title of the doc of the avant scene in New York about 30 years ago - Peter Kowald, Parker and his wife, Charles Gayle...  I haven't been able to find my disc and I haven't been able to find it on youtube


Posted By: js
Date Posted: 01 Apr 2021 at 5:57am
I never thought about that before, but your right, Pete's cascading piano notes do sound a lot like Alice Coltrane.
On another jazz related Townsend note, Miles Davis was fond of Pete's playing and said that he liked the way Pete would not play full chords, but only a few notes of the chord instead, "but they are the right notes", was his evaluation. 
I'm not familiar with the doc you mention, but i will look around for it. My latest youtube viewing has been centered around reruns of the White Rapper Show from VH1 in 2007, lol. 


Posted By: birdtranescoe
Date Posted: 02 Apr 2021 at 9:04pm
Finally found it!  https://youtu.be/XO0eT6pkNhk



Posted By: js
Date Posted: 03 Apr 2021 at 7:28am
I'll check this out later.





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