Alice Coltrane Dies At 69 Jazz Pianist Was Also A Spiritual Leader January 14, 2007 Los Angeles Times
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LOS ANGELES -- Alice Coltrane, the jazz performer and composer who was inextricably linked with the adventurous musical improvisations of her late husband, the legendary saxophonist John Coltrane, has died. She was 69.
Coltrane died Friday at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles, according to family friends. She had been in frail health for some time and died of respiratory failure.
Though known to many for her contributions to jazz and early new age music, Coltrane, a convert to Hinduism, was also a significant spiritual leader and founded the Vedantic Center, a spiritual commune now in Agoura, Calif. A guru of growing repute, she also served as the swami of the San Fernando Valley's first Hindu Temple, in Chatsworth.
For much of the past 40 years, she was also the keeper of her husband's musical legacy, managing his archive and estate. Her husband, one of the pivotal figures in the history of jazz, died of liver disease on July 17, 1967, at the age of 40.
A pianist and organist, Alice Coltrane was noted for her astral compositions and for bringing the harp onto the jazz bandstand. Her last performances came in the fall, when she participated in an abbreviated tour that included stops in New York and San Francisco, playing with her saxophonist son, Ravi.
She was born Alice McLeod in Detroit on Aug. 27, 1937, into a family with deep musical roots. Anna, her mother, sang and played piano in the Baptist church choir. Alice's brother Ernie Farrow was a bassist who played professionally with groups led by saxophonist Yusef Lateef and vibes player Terry Gibbs.
Alice began her musical education at the age of 7, learning classical piano. Her early musical career included performances in church groups and as well as in top-flight jazz ensembles led by Lateef, guitarist Kenny Burrell and saxophonist Lucky Thompson.
After studying jazz piano briefly in Paris, she moved to New York and joined Gibbs' quartet.
She met John Coltrane in 1963 while playing an engagement with Gibbs' group at Birdland in New York City.
"He saw something in her that was beautiful," Gibbs, who has often taken credit for introducing the two, told the Los Angeles Times.
She left Gibbs' band to marry Coltrane and began performing with her husband's band in 1965, replacing pianist McCoy Tyner.
