walking upstream…
Alice Coltrane
photo: unknown photographer · public domain ↗Alice Coltrane
Alice McLeod trained as a gospel pianist in Detroit's churches before crossing into bebop, studying in Paris with Bud Powell and later joining John Coltrane's quartet, whom she married in 1965 and played alongside until his death two years later. Switching to harp and organ, she spent the early 1970s recording a run of orchestral, Eastern-inflected albums for Impulse! — Journey in Satchidananda and Ptah, the El Daoud among them — that reimagined jazz as devotional music, before largely retreating into ashram life as Swamini Turiyasangitananda. Her great-nephew Flying Lotus has called her the single biggest influence on his own music.
the sound in question
1971
Journey in SatchidanandaAlice Coltrane
walk the tributaries ↓
John Coltrane1960s · Jazz / Modal jazz / Spiritual jazz
Alice joined John Coltrane's group in 1966, playing piano alongside him through his final, most exploratory modal and free-jazz recordings until his death in 1967 — an immersion in his search for a music-as-spiritual-practice that she carried directly into her own solo work.
listen: upstream & here
1961
My Favorite Things, Pt. 1John Coltrane
1970
Ptah, the El DaoudAlice Coltrane
listen forPlay John Coltrane's soprano-sax vamp on 'My Favorite Things' and then Alice Coltrane's own 'Ptah, the El Daoud' — both ride a hypnotic, modal drone for long stretches, treating repetition as a path toward trance rather than a shortcut around harmony.
Bud Powell1950s · Bebop / Jazz
The teenage Alice McLeod fell into Detroit's bebop scene under her brother's influence, and in 1959 traveled to Paris specifically to study piano with Bud Powell, who she has credited — alongside Thelonious Monk — as an important influence on both her harmonic vocabulary and her willingness to take risks.
listen: upstream & here
1951
Un Poco LocoBud Powell
1970
Blue NileAlice Coltrane
listen forPowell's careening, Afro-Cuban-tinged 'Un Poco Loco' and Alice Coltrane's own percussive, cascading 'Blue Nile' both push a keyboard instrument into dense, rhythmically restless territory that never quite resolves the way you expect.
Thelonious Monk1950s · Bebop / Jazz
Alongside Bud Powell, Alice Coltrane has named Thelonious Monk as a formative influence from her Detroit bebop apprenticeship — Monk's angular, dissonant reharmonizations of standard chord changes fed directly into her own comfort with unresolved, off-kilter voicings once she moved to harp and organ.
listen: upstream & here
1947
'Round MidnightThelonious Monk
1976
Los CaballosAlice Coltrane
listen forMonk's lurching, off-the-beat phrasing on ''Round Midnight' and the tumbling, unresolved harp runs of Alice Coltrane's 'Los Caballos' both linger on dissonance a beat longer than feels comfortable, then let it hang instead of resolving it neatly.