Monument Eternal: The Music of Alice Coltrane

by Franya J. Berkman

Long-awaited biography of an African American avant-garde composer

Alice Coltrane was a composer, improviser, guru, and widow of John Coltrane. Over the course of her musical life, she synthesized a wide range of musical genres including gospel, rhythm-and-blues, bebop, free jazz, Indian devotional song, and Western art music. Her childhood experiences playing for African-American congregations in Detroit, the ecstatic and avant-garde improvisations she performed on the bandstand with her husband John Coltrane, and her religious pilgrimages to India reveal themselves on more than twenty albums of original music for the Impulse and Warner Brothers labels.

In the late 1970s Alice Coltrane became a swami, directing an alternative spiritual community in Southern California. Exploring her transformation from Alice McLeod, Detroit church pianist and bebopper, to guru Swami Turiya Sangitananda, Monument Eternal illuminates her music and, in turn, reveals the exceptional fluidity of American religious practices in the second half of the twentieth century. Most of all, this book celebrates the hybrid music of an exceptional, boundary-crossing African-American artist.

Genres: Music, Jazz, Biography

160 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2010

Reviews

[Darryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice Coltrane (1937-2007) was an accomplished musician well before she met John Coltrane, the legendary jazz saxophonist, in the early 1960s. Born Alice McLeod to a musical family on the East End of Detroit, she was exposed at a young age to black religious and folk music in her church, where she served as the three choirs' pianist and arranger, and to modern jazz at home, where her half-brother Ernest Farrow was an accomplished musician, and throughout the Motor City, as she studied under and played alongside well known artists such as Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, Yusef Lateef and Sonny Stitt. Her fellow musicians described her as an innovative pianist, whose phrasing integrated her knowledge of those different musical genres into a unique style. Unfortunately her talent earned her little recognition, due to the double prejudice of race and gender, as many "girl musicians" who were not singers or hard driving musicians were not taken seriously, and because most jazz musicians gained their fame in New York, Los Angeles or elsewhere.

McLeod decided to further her career by moving to Paris along with a local scat singer, who she married before leaving Detroit, but she soon returned to her home town with her young daughter after she divorced him. She performed locally with Terry Gibbs' band, until she met John Coltrane on tour. The two married soon after, and after three years of being a mother to their three children, Trane invited her to replace McCoy Tyner as the group's pianist in 1965, as he replaced his classic quartet with musicians that better fit his abstract music that stretched the boundaries of jazz and incorporated elements of Eastern music. Trane's health failed, and he died in 1967 of liver cancer at the age of 41. However, Alice continued where her husband and teacher left off, and continued to explore his music in her own fashion, as she used her past experiences to produce her own music that incorporated avant garde jazz with Indian music. She recorded more than 20 albums over the next 40 years, including Ptah, the El Daoud (1970), Universal Consciousness (1972), Transcendence (1977) and Translinear Light (2004), and became a spiritual leader of a Hindu center in California. The success of Translinear Light led to a brief comeback in 2006, as she played with her son Ravi Coltrane, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Roy Haynes, but passed away the following year.

Alice Coltrane's life and music has long been under-recognized, and Franya Berkman chose her as the subject of her PhD thesis in ethnomusicology, which she extended into this work. Through interviews with Alice and those musicians who performed with her, Berkman effectively dispels the falsehoods about this talented musician and spiritual seeker, and the reader gains an appreciation for her talent prior to, during, and after her years with Trane. This book would be best appreciated by those with some familiarity with Alice Coltrane's music, as it is more of a musical analysis than a biography, but it is an excellent introduction to this amazingly talented artist.

[Joshua Line · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. Explores In rewarding detail her pre- John music in Detroit, her pivotal work with John and her completely original later music.

[Skrot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Includes some biographical information in addition to musical analysis. Also covers her Hindu ashram music and role as guru. Makes me wish someone would write a 1,000-page bio of Alice. Her life and work warrant it.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only book I could find on the life of Alice Coltrane, who I love. I was disappointed, the author seemed to focus more on themes of Alice's life, as opposed to writing a true biography. This may have been because Alice was a private, spiritual woman who didn't talk about herself.

[Austin Pierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful.

Alice Coltrane is too complex for one book to be complete. But the author really immersed herself and added something meaningful.