| NPR Shop | NPR Community | Login | Register

Share this page using one of the following services:

 

What is this?

 

Alice Coltrane: 'Translinear Light'

Ashley Kahn's 'Morning Edition' Report on Alice Coltrane

Alice Coltrane
Doualy Xaykaothao, NPR

Alice Coltrane

Cover for Alice Coltrane's 'Translinear Light'

Cover for Alice Coltrane's Translinear Light (Impulse Records, 2004)

From 'Translinear Light'

Hear samples from Alice Coltrane's long-awaited CD:

Listen 'Sita Ram'

Listen 'Translinear Light'

From the 1970 Alice Coltrane CD Ptah, The El Daoud

Listen 'Blue Nile'
This item is available for purchase online. Your purchase helps support NPR.

September 23, 2004 - If jazz legend John Coltrane has disciples — musical or otherwise — chief among them would be his widow, Alice Coltrane.

Alice Coltrane, now 67, met her husband when they were both touring jazz musicians — she was a noted bebop jazz pianist and classically trained musician. She shared with her husband a passion for both music and the spiritual side of human experience. At one point, she joined her husband's famed quartet on piano, replacing jazz great McCoy Tyner.

When her famous husband died of liver cancer in 1967, Alice Coltrane became a fierce guardian of his vast musical estate. She was also left with the task of raising their four children. She continued with a string of well-received albums, but quit the jazz world in 1978.

Now, after a 26-year hiatus, Alice Coltrane is back with a new CD, Translinear Light. The title is a play on the Coltrane name, and also a nod to Alice Coltrane's deep spirituality.

"Look at what trance means," she tells The Tavis Smiley Show producer Roy Hurst. "It means to transcend... it means to become transcendental! So if we get a singular transcendental path of light, that could lead to such great dimensions of consciousness, of revelation, of spirituality, of spiritual power."

Alice Coltrane will join her son Ravi Coltrane and artists Savion Glover and Branford Marsalis in a concert to benefit the John Coltrane Foundation on Sept. 30 in Los Angeles.

Share this page using one of the following services:

 

What is this?

 

Comments

Discussions for this story are now closed. Please see the Community FAQ for more information.

 
 

Feeds

PodcastRSS

  • Music Interviews & Profiles
     
  • The Tavis Smiley Show
     
 
 

Web Resources

 

  • Alice Coltrane

    Purchase Featured Music

    close window
     
    • CD: Translinear Light
    • Artist: Alice Coltrane
    • Released: 0
    •  
    •  
     
    Your purchase helps support NPR Programming. How?