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Alice Coltrane, wife of John, mother of Ravi and musician extraordinaire passed away on January 12th of respiratory failure. She was 69. A devotee of Sathya Sai Baba, she took the name Swamini Turiyasangitananda but continued to perform as Alice Coltrane.
Notwithstanding her religious affiliations, I had the pleasure of seeing her publicly perform live for the last time in her life (in the last of a series of three concerts, after a 25 year hiatus) on November 4th, 2006 at the Masonic Center here in San Francisco as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival. She played with Ravi Coltrane, Roy Haynes and Charlie Haden. The concert was superlative. She opened with a jazzed up Raghupati Raghav Rajaram and we were blown away. We were right in the front row and could almost touch her. She gave herself completely to the organ she was playing and from the music that resulted one could see that this was a woman of substance.
While playing Coltrane’s Impressions, there was a jam session between Haines and Ravi, at the end of which Haines said, “I haven’t played that hard since I played with John.” It was mind-blowing and I believed it. Haines is a Down Beat magazine Hall-of-Famer and has sixty-plus years of drumming with the who’s who of the jazz greats. If he said that he played hard, then that’s as hard as it gets. While I never had the fortune of seeing Coltrane play live (he died before I was born), this is the closest I will ever get. And I am certain that Alice’s presence inspired the energy and vitality of the interplay between Haines and Ravi.
She moved more and more into meditative and spiritual music and although she performed live shortly after Coltrane’s death, these performances became fewer and fewer until they completely stopped in 1981. It took Ravi years of gentle cajoling to convince her to step out from behind her veil, as it were. And I, for one, am thankful that he did. She received standing ovations at the beginning and the end of both sets and while I was skeptical when she walked in, I was a convert when she walked off. She will be missed.
See here for a more detailed review of her last concert, and here and here for some more obits.
Image Source: Arts at the University of Michigan
4 responses so far ↓
1 Tony O'Clery // Apr 4, 2007 at 11:42 am
It is a pity she wasted her time worshipping the alleged pedophile sai baba. Although her works and music were admirable.
2 The Great Ganesha // Apr 4, 2007 at 12:06 pm
tony – agreed. but she’s not the first western artist to fall into such traps, and she certainly won’t be the last…
3 simon // Apr 4, 2007 at 1:31 pm
How fortunate she was, to have found the Great Avatar – Sai Baba. A true blessing.
Allegations against the Avatar, are as proven, baseless.
4 max // Feb 21, 2010 at 9:59 pm
How fortunate she was, entrapped in the immaculate energies of Pure Stain-Less LUV !
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