Toward the end of his life, John Coltrane bought a harp, hoping that the instrument would help him rethink his approach to harmony and texture. Click on the player above to hear “5 on 5: Alice Coltrane” and explore the composer’s global-influence jazz below. When he died, Alice was devastated, but she continued to forge the musically spiritual and visionary path the two had earlier established, releasing records as a composer and bandleader. She and John continued playing and recording until his death in July 1967. Critics felt that she was unduly influencing Coltrane’s sound and leading him away from “pure jazz.” Alice and John’s growing involvement in spirituality influenced John’s compositions and projects like “A Love Supreme.” At the time of its release, the album caused a bit of a stir in the jazz community, which reached an apex in 1966 when Alice replaced McCoy Tyner as primary pianist with John Coltrane’s group, drastically altering its sound. She performed in various clubs around Detroit until moving to Paris in the late 1950s, where she studied classical music and jazz with noted musician Bud Powell and married to musician Kenny “Pancho” Hagood.Īfter her marriage to ended in divorce due to Hagood’s developing heroin addiction, she and her daughter moved back to Detroit, where she met John Coltrane in 1963.įrom the start, Coltrane was her collaborator and her soulmate. She played organ at Mount Olive Baptist Church by age 9, discovered bebop in her teens and gigged with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and Sonny Stitt before she was 20. Get to know her work with these five essential tracks.īorn in Detroit in 1937, the young Alice McLeod was a musical prodigy. Misunderstood and dismissed by jazz gatekeepers for decades, Alice Coltrane's compelling and mysterious style of jazz pushed the genre forward in previously unthinkable ways.
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