Alice Coltrane: The Hidden Architect of Spiritual Jazz

Detroit to the Coltrane quartet

Alice McLeod was born in Detroit in 1937 and grew up playing piano and organ in church. She worked as a jazz pianist, including with vibraphonist Terry Gibbs, before meeting John Coltrane. They married in the mid-1960s, and she replaced McCoy Tyner on piano in his band, playing on his late, most exploratory records. After his death in 1967 she began recording as a leader.

The Impulse! albums

Her first run of solo records came out on Impulse!, the label her husband had defined. A Monastic Trio (1968) introduced her harp playing. Ptah, the El Daoud (1970) paired the saxophones of Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson. Journey in Satchidananda (1971) is the one most people start with: harp, bass, drums, tanpura and Pharoah Sanders on soprano, with a meditative, rolling feel that sounds nothing like the jazz of a decade earlier. Universal Consciousness (1971) adds strings and her organ playing.

She moved to Warner Bros. later in the decade for records such as Eternity (1976) and Transcendence (1977), which bring Indian devotional singing further forward.

The ashram recordings

Alice Coltrane became a spiritual teacher, took the name Turiyasangitananda, and founded an ashram in Southern California. There she recorded devotional music for the community: chants with synthesisers, organ and a chorus of voices, released only on cassette. For decades these tapes circulated among a small group of collectors. In 2017 the label Luaka Bop compiled them as The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, and they reached a much wider audience.

Her influence

Spiritual jazz, the loose genre of devotional, modal, often Afrocentric jazz of the late 60s and 70s, owes her a great deal, and its revival in the 2010s, from Kamasi Washington to the London scene, brought her records back into circulation. Flying Lotus, whose great-aunt she was, has spoken often about her influence on his music.

Sampling and production notes

• •Harp glissandi make lush, instantly recognisable transitions; even a one-second sweep changes the mood of a beat.
• •Her organ playing uses pitch bends and vibrato that sound unlike any other jazz organist; chop sustained chords rather than runs.
• •The drones (tanpura, bass pedal notes) can sit under a loop as a bed without fighting the key, as long as you match the root.
• •Tempos are free in places. Expect to edit loops by ear rather than to a grid.

Records to start with

• •Journey in Satchidananda (1971)
• •Ptah, the El Daoud (1970)
• •Universal Consciousness (1971)
• •World Galaxy (1972)
• •Eternity (1976)
• •The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda (2017 compilation)

Dig spiritual jazz on CrateDrop

Set the genre to Jazz, the years to 1967–1979, and the style to Free Jazz, Modal or Contemporary Jazz. The obscurity filter is useful here: there are dozens of small-label spiritual jazz albums, often self-released, that barely anyone has heard.