The Coltrane Family On Celebrating Alice At Carnegie Hall

In 1971, jazz giant Alice Coltrane performed a now iconic show at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Last year, that show was finally shared with the world as an acclaimed live album. And tomorrow night (May 16) her family return to Carnegie Hall to pay tribute to her music and celebrate her legacy.

I spoke with her children, Ravi and Michelle Coltrane, as well as her nephew, Flying Lotus, about the show, why Alice’s music is more popular now than ever and her love of Carnegie Hall.

Steve Baltin: For both of you talk about what it means to get to do this event and pay homage to your mom.

Michelle Coltrane: It’s an amazing feeling and I want to see it as much as I want to be a part of it, but having her harp full circle, having sat on that stage with my mother playing my little violin, having that from 11 years old to return to Carnegie Hall for a moment like this is a dream come true.

Ravi Coltrane: I would agree. My mother did really admire and appreciate that very historic room, as most people do. She performed there several times, and we were able to release a recording from 1971 of one of her performances at Carnegie Hall. Her music is becoming more popular with younger people these days and keeping her message of kindness, of love and devotion and peace and harmony. Keeping that message alive is very important for us you know and doing it through her music performing her music is an honor to do that.

Baltin: It’s funny you say that keeping her message alive is very important. It feels like at this time the music is becoming more relevant as times get more challenging.

Michelle: Absolutely. I think it speaks to a lot of parts of ailing society or within people when in COVID people were making choices in their entertainment or what they wanted to engage in and maybe they were just searching for something with deeper meaning.

Ravi: Yeah, this music is meant to uplift spirits. It was either Art Blake or Duke Ellington who said his music is supposed to wash off the dust of daily life. Life’s always had its challenges. We’re definitely in challenging times today But the music is healing and again, it’s about uplifting spirits.

Baltin: As you started to see AI, people have wanted to go back to more organic sounds and more human elements. Do you feel like that humanity in her music may be part of it as well?

Ravi: Yeah, there’s a pureness in her music that that people recognize right away. I think it’s something that people have always felt about our mother’s music. It’s very easy to recognize, you put on that music, and it becomes like this balm. It’s very soothing, and I know people who put her music on every day almost like a spiritual type of practice and meditation to engage with that vibration daily.

Michelle: It’s always been a very unique organic and beautiful sound that she created. And of course the world needs more of that. Absolutely. Like the piece “Journey in Satchidananda,” which almost everybody knows now, it seems to have this real attainable quality with the groove that it has. You can lock into that, and it has freedom. I just started seeing all these t -shirts, a lot of young people, I don’t know how young, but all the way to college age, talking about how much they connected with that piece. And if they can start there, there’s a whole bunch more music to go to. I found a lot of people coming up to me singing “Om Supreme,” which is a beautiful piece from the album, Eternity.

Baltin: Is there music now of your mom’s that you have a new appreciation for? Are there songs that maybe when you were younger, you didn’t quite understand that now are favorites?

Michelle: I feel like I’m always doing some study, looking in the liner notes and seeing all the different musicians that were on the recordings, I’m doing that kind of navigating. Well, I’m doing a radio program to just try to connect all the dots, but I think it all sounds like something that belongs in our wheelhouse as far as the sound is concerned. When I was little it just was like you’re running around, but it’s just her sound, it’s the same person. So, I identify with it like that. I like the spiritual music because I was a little older and I know a lot of the lyrics.

Ravi: I think the music, for us, has a very historical root. It’s music that we’ve heard our entire lives. Our mother played piano and organ in the house every day. And coming home from school, that was the first kind of sound that we were greeted with. So, it’s her sound, it’s just a part of the fabric of kind of our lives, I would say just something that we’re used to hearing. It always sounds like mom, that’s what it sounds like. I’ve been able to appreciate it on different levels as I age and mature as a musician, but it still has the same sound to me. It’s the sound of our mother, the sound of Alice.

Baltin: What are you most looking forward to at Carnegie Hall? Are there songs that you’re particularly excited to bring to people?

Ravi: It’s a large chamber orchestra. I think we have about 35 musicians. Our mother loved the sound of the orchestra. She loved the sound of strings. And a lot of her early Impulse records feature string sections, parts that she orchestrated and composed herself. A lot of that music was only made for those recordings. It was never performed live. So that really was the idea, to take a lot of these recorded works and perform them for an audience. We haven’t done that before; these would be world premieres really. So, I’m looking forward to hearing this orchestral music played in that space.

Michelle: I look forward to being with my family. Look at the age, we’re all grown up. It’s just going to be a lot of sentiment in, and our cousin Steven [will be there], so a family member. Brandee [Younger] might as well be, but with the harp that we stood with our little feet bare feet on and spun around on.

Ravi: (Laughs) Yeah, I don’t remember the spinning around with the bare feet part.

Michelle: (Chuckles) Well, we put our toes on there and it was knocked over a few times. My mother was so generous with us and allowed us to be children or we were under the piano or we were at the recording sessions. You see us sometimes in the background photos. I’m thrilled that the harp is being used and being played and that we got it to Carnegie Hall.

Baltin: When did you start to understand that Alice, who was family to you, is this deity to the rest of the world?

Flying Lotus: I started to understand a bit more of that separation over time. For so long, she was auntie and a lot of the conversation around her was often about John Coltrane. So much of my life she was living in the shadow. Everyone wanted to talk to her about what was it like being with John. That was people’s go-to versus getting to really try to understand her on a deeper level. This is my perception of it. Right. I think, for me, personally, I really started to gain a different appreciation for it when I left home and went to college and really started to listen to different types of music and be around different types of people and really start embracing her music in its own way. Then when I started to appreciate that and do some more digging it started to become even clearer to me. But for so long, I remember thinking, “Why does everybody love my auntie so much?” I didn’t really get it when I was a kid, but over time you start to see it. Besides her just being an amazing human being, you see the greater musicianship and all this stuff about her.

Baltin: I think that a lot of younger people are discovering it in ways that they never did.

Lotus: It’s funny that you say that because it’s like a lot of great music that was not appreciated as much in its time. And then over time people realized that it was really special. And self-included I went through my own journey of that, and I continued to every few years go back and listen to her music and be like, “Dang, I just have a deeper appreciation for what it was and what she did.” Both of them really, but it’s more so my aunt Alice just because I feel like there’s so many levels to what she was doing.

Baltin: You say for so long people wanted to talk to her about him. Do you feel like this Carnegie Hall show is more important because his music will always have an impact and getting her music out there reminds people that she was a celebrated artist in her own right?

Lotus: Absolutely and to be honest with you I feel like I hear more about her now than him so it’s funny how that worked out. And it’s not just because I’m her nephew it’s just literally I see bumper stickers about Alice Coltrane, and I see people wearing Alice Coltrane shirts and they’re young people.

Baltin: Do you ever get to talk to people and ask them why?

Lotus: I feel like I know without knowing in a weird way. I feel like I can see it. I can see an Alice Coltrane fan. I can smell ’em. You could play, “You look like you listen to NPR.” There’s that whole NPR crowd. I could spot them just based on my fanbase too. I feel like I have a sixth sense for someone who may know about Alice Coltrane for sure. I think that there’s something super genuine about what she’s done and her contributions that really resonate with people. I know my reasons are not anyone else’s reasons, but probably the scope of it is just like they feel something or they’ve been impressed by the sound of it.

Baltin: Talk about the show and what you’re excited to do.

Lotus: I’m just happy to be there with my family and celebrate her music and her legacy. I hope me and Ravi do something together. That’d be fun.