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(1937
- 2007)
On January 12th, 2007, Miss Coltrane died at the age of 69.
biography
Music obviously ran in Alice Coltrane's family; her older brother
was bassist Ernie Farrow, who in the '50s and '60s played in the
bands of Barry Harris, Stan Getz, Terry Gibbs and especially,
Yusef Lateef. Alice McLeod began studying classical music at the
age of seven. She attended Detroit's Cass Technical High School
with pianist Hugh Lawson and drummer Earl Williams. As a young
woman she played in church, and was a fine bebop pianist in the
bands of such local musicians as Lateef and Kenny Burrell. McLeod
traveled to Paris in 1959 to study with Bud Powell. She met John
Coltrane while touring and recording with Gibbs around 1962-63;
she married the saxophonist in 1965, and joined his band -- replacing
McCoy Tyner -- one year later. Alice stayed with John's band until
his death in 1967; on his albums Live at the Village Vanguard
Again and Concert in Japan, her playing is characterized by rhythmically
ambiguous arpeggios and a pulsing thickness of texture.
Subsequently, she formed her own bands with players such as Pharoah
Sanders, Joe Henderson, Frank Lowe, Carlos Ward, Rashied Ali,
Archie Shepp, and Jimmy Garrison. In addition to the piano, Ms.
Coltrane also played harp and Wurlitzer organ. She led a series
of groups and recorded fairly often for Impulse, including the
celebrated albums Monastic Trio, Journey in Satchidananda, Universal
Consciousness and World Galaxy. She then moved to Warner Brothers
where she relased albums such as Transformation, Eternity and
her double live opus Transfiguration in 1978.
Long
concerned with spiritual matters, Ms. Coltrane founded a center
for Eastern spiritual study called the Vedanta Center in 1975.
Also, she began a long hiatus from public or recorded performance,
though her 1981 appearance on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz radio
series was released by Jazz Alliance. In 1987, she led a quartet
that included her sons Ravi and Oran in a John Coltrane tribute
concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.
Ms. Coltrane returned to public performance in 1998 at a Town
Hall Concert with Ravi and again at Joe's Pub in Manhattan in
2002. She began recording again in 2000 and eventually issued
the stellar Translinear Light on the Verve label in 2004. Produced
by Ravi, it featured Ms. Coltrane on piano, organ and synthesizer,
in a host of playing situations with luminary collaborators that
included not only her sons, but also Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette,
Jeff "Tain" Watts, and James Genus. ~ Chris Kelsey,
Scott Yanow, and Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
- Written by Chris Kelsey |
