Touching the Infinite

The Univeral Consciousness of Alice Coltrane

By Dominic Wagner

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When engaging a true beat junkie, catalogue comparisons are inevitable. For the record connoisseur forced to admit that they have never listened to a monumental artist such as Alice Coltrane, the scales slip quickly, yanking them perilously close to being perceived by the more sonically enlightened as a bottom feeder of the great jazz collective. It is without question that they deserve the gas face. To confess that one has never partaken of Alice Coltrane is similar to proclaiming, “I have never looked upon the sea,” or “I have never heard a child laugh.” Alice Coltrane’s music is not only reflective of endless waters and the innocence of children—it is a calling from the innermost part of our being, the incantation of a Queen and the eternal echo of our ancestors’ voices filling the universe with love. It is all of these things and more.

Coltrane was born Alice McLeod on August 27, 1937 in a Detroit whose character was defined by possibility and renewal. Many Black families from the south had made their way to this thriving metropolis in order to take advantage of its surging economy. Newcomers were guaranteed jobs in the automotive industry, which at the time seemed a tremendous step up from sharecropping, a form of institutionalized slavery that crippled many Black communities for generations. Economic security and a chance to realize the American dream was enough to entice most of the population to the urban lifestyle. However practical the blue-collar hustle seemed at that time, Alice’s parents felt her path should take a different course. Despite their own working class background they made arrangements to begin her training as a classical pianist when she was still a child. Alice’s musical lexicon began to take shape through the rigorous study of Bach and Beethoven. Her parents fortified this technical upbringing by having her participate in the gospel band at church. The expression of her family’s strong religious foundations, which were sustained within the church’s celebratory and contemplative hymns, served as Alice’s first example of how music, spirituality and history can be one in the same.

Although the McLeod home operated under the philosophy of the classic and pious, the city of Detroit was becoming a hot bed for a fresh new secular sound. Its streets were electrified with the jazz of Kenny Burrell and Lucky Thompson, who were just a small part of a group of young musicians redefining human expression. Bassist Ernie Farrow, ( Alice’s older half brother ) was one of the many young artists who gravitated towards the new jazz sound and spread its gospel to anyone who would lend an ear. In Alice he found a willing disciple who quickly utilized her classical background to engage Bop head on. Her unique approach to piano and organ made her an original voice on the Detroit jazz scene. She conjured a gumbo of gospel, blues and classical music that soon attracted the attention of many established musicians, including the vibraphonist and bandleader Terry Gibbs. After she returned from a brief stint in Paris, where she was under the tutelage of the legendary jazz pianist Bud Powell, Gibbs approached Alice with a proposition to join him on tour in New York, and she humbly accepted. Upon arriving in New York, Alice began distinguishing herself in a scene known as the center of the jazz universe. Armed with stunning arpeggios, the ability to create dynamic improvisational moments and a vibrant tone, she gigged with many of the local legends, from Cannonball Adderley to Sonny Stitt and in the process of sharing her ideas, sparked an evolution that would span her entire career.