- A previously unreleased benefit concert for Alice Coltrane's since-defamed spiritual mentor offers an opportunity to examine her spiritual journey in the late '60s and '70s.
- When Alice Coltrane played at Carnegie Hall on Sunday, February 21, 1971, the temperature in New York City was about 42 degrees. She had already made her five-week pilgrimage to India with the celebrity guru Swami Satchidananda, and through this experience, claimed to have completed most of her sadhana, or spiritual struggle. Her latest album indebted to the guru's teachings, Journey In Satchidananda, was released just a week or so prior and this concert, a benefit for Satchidananda's Integral Yoga Institute in the West Village, was a further extension of her appreciation. That night, Ed Michel, the A&R for influential jazz label Impulse! was responsible for the recording. Michel's attempt to convince Impulse! to release the recording was a long struggle—so long, the master tapes were lost in the process. What remains is a reference mix, which the label has finally decided to polish and release as Alice Coltrane: The Carnegie Hall Concert 53 years later.
It's easy to imagine the excitement that brewed around Alice's first Carnegie Hall performance since 1968. That night, she was joined by band members who worked on Journey In Satchidananda the year prior: Pharoah Sanders—then at his prime—on saxophone, Cecil McBee on bass and Tulsi Reynolds on tamboura. The double quartet also featured drummers Ed Blackwell and Clifford Jarvis, another bassist, Jimmy Garrison, Archie Schepp on saxophone and Kumar Kramer on harmonium.
Alice was asked to perform a 20-minute set, like the singer Lauren Nyro did before her. When the first bass notes arrive on "Journey In Satchidananda," there's such anticipation in the air that someone begins to clap before they appear to be shushed. The crowd was enthralled. Noticing this, the event's host, Sid Bernstein, walked onstage to tell Alice that she could play for as long as she'd like. In response, she played a 15-minute extended version of the song, which allowed enough time for improvisations to really unfurl. Alice's harp waterfalls down the soundscape—at other times, there are aggressive outbreaks, as sudden notes strike the audience in jagged directions. Sanders, on flute, plays multiphonically in his solo, backing his delicate passages with squeaky vocal whines. On "Shiva Loka," also from Journey In Satchidananda, Sanders switches between the flute and saxophone, where he screeches into a swirling, at times heaving void of harp and drum.
In 1970, Alice was battling depression when her colleague, Vishnu Wood, suggested she attend one of Satchidananda's lectures in the Upper East Side. That year, Alice befriended Satchidananda, and she would visit him regularly to receive spiritual guidance. With the help of his lessons, she found her way out of a long period of darkness and recorded Journey In Satchidananda in November 1970. Here, her work in the free jazz world intermingled with her increasing interest in Vedic music. John Coltrane-inflected bass ostinatos meet tamboura drones, and the combination creates an essence akin to green chartreuse—earthy, at times florid and always invigorating throughout.
Journey In Satchidananda is an essential footnote in Alice's spiritual and musical journey. After her husband, the famed free jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, passed away from liver cancer in 1967, Alice Coltrane embarked on a gruelling spiritual journey. She experienced hallucinations, such as voices coming from the trees. She meditated for as long as 20 hours and held physical and spiritual tests, some of which led her to be hospitalised. Her weight dropped from 128 pounds to 95 pounds. She often referred to these emotional trials as tapas, a yogic concept defined as adversity needed for spiritual purification. In the midst of this turmoil, came one of John's last gifts, delivered onto her doorstep—a Healy concert harp that John ordered for her months before he died. After years performing as a pianist in the Detroit bebop scene, then most famously, pivoting to free jazz in John Coltrane's quartet, she taught herself to play the new instrument in under a year. The harp was at the centre of her first solo albums A Monastic Trio, Huntington Ashram Monastery and Ptah The El Daoud.
At Carnegie Hall, the second half of the band's performances paid homage to Alice's late husband. The energy begins to crescendo here, beginning with a 30-minute extended rendition of John's "Africa." Here, Alice transitions to piano, on which she bangs chords with reckless abandon. Saxophone bleats uncontrollably and humanly, like someone screaming in duress. By the middle, the chaos is subdued, and a galvanizing drum solo bathes in the rare quiet. Alice grew up in the church, so when the band switches to "Leo," a song that was released posthumously on John's Infinity album, it's likely she felt the spirit spinning in the hall that night. Alice moves like a blizzard, beautifully sweeping up and down the piano with rippling arpeggios. One of the most memorable solos is the one closing out—a furious drum solo that gallops and rolls, only briefly intercepted by a cowbell. The rest of the instruments soon join and end together, free jazz style—individual piano chords rise from the maelstrom, while horns murmur and percussion does, essentially, whatever feels appropriate.
By the following year, the intensity of Alice's relationship with Satchidananda would wane. In the summer of 1971, rumours swirled that the guru, who promoted and was believed to live a life of celibacy, was sexually involved with women in his inner circle. In 1991, several sexual misconduct allegations were magnified during a protest outside of a Virginia hotel, where he gave a keynote speech for a symposium. The three protestors, all former students, held up placards with comments like "How can you call yourself a spiritual leader when you sexually abused me and other women in the community?" 20 years earlier, attendees at the Carnegie Hall concert might have sensed his troublesome cult-like influence themselves, when Nyro spoke extensively about her lessons with the guru, which included advice on how to make a man fall in love with her. "You have to be his woman and his lover, you have to be his best friend, you have to be his sister, you have to be his mother, you have to be his maid," she summarised. "Bullshit," someone in the crowd shouted in response.
In the world of free jazz, where women historically have been neglected, Alice Coltrane is often described as an exception—but a closer inspection suggests this isn't entirely true. Impulse! originally failed to release The Carnegie Hall Concert recording because they weren't, in Michel's words, "enamoured of [her] music." The history of misogyny that followed Journey In Satchidananda complicates the serenity and innovation within it. But when the crowd at Carnegie Hall roared before the band finished the last notes of "Leo," they did so not for Satchidananda, not for John, not for Impulse! but for a woman at a vital creative turning point, who had endured much but would continue to entwine her musical and spiritual practice with wonder and endless courage.
Tracklist01. Journey In Satchidananda
02. Shiva-Loka
03. Africa
04. Leo