Music obviously ran in Alice Coltrane's family; her older brother was bassist Ernie Farrow, who in the '50s and '60s played in the bands of Barry Harris, Stan Getz, Terry Gibbs and especially, Yusef Lateef. Alice McLeod began studying classical music at the age of seven. She attended Detroit's Cass Technical High School with pianist Hugh Lawson and drummer Earl Williams. As a young woman she played in church, and in the bands of such local musicians as Lateef and Kenny Burrell. McLeod traveled to Paris in 1959 to study with Bud Powell. She met John Coltrane while touring and recording with Gibbs around 1962-63; she married the saxophonist in 1965, and joined his band — replacing McCoy Tyner — a year later. Alice stayed with John's band until his death in 1967. Subsequently, she formed her own bands with players such as Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson, Frank Lowe, Carlos Ward, Rashied Ali, Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson, Archie Shepp, and Jimmy Garrison. In addition to the piano, Ms. Coltrane also played harp and Wurlitzer organ. She led a series of groups and recorded fairly often for Impulse, including the celebrated albums Monastic Trio, Journey In Satchidananda, Universal Consciousness and World Galaxy. She then moved to Warner Brothers where she relased albums such as Transformation, Eternity and her double live opus Transfiguration in 1978. Long concerned with spiritual matters, Ms. Coltrane founded a center for Eastern spiritual study called the Vedanta Center in 1975. She began a long hiatus from public or recorded performance though her 1981 appearance on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz radio series was released by Jazz Alliance.. In 1987 she led a quartet that included her sons Ravi and Oran in a John Coltrane tribute concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.

Alice Coltrane was a fine bebop pianist in her early years. With John Coltrane, on albums like Live at the Village Vanguard Again or Concert in Japan, her playing is characterized by rhythmically ambiguous arpeggios and a pulsing thickness of texture. Ms. Coltrane, returned to public performance in 1998 at a Town Hall Concert with son Ravi Colltrane and again at Joe's Pub in Manhattan in 2002. Ms. Coltrane began recording again in 2000 and eventually issued the stellar Translinear Light on the Verve Label in 2004. Produced by Ravi it features Ms. Coltrane on piano, organ and synthesizer, in a host of playing situations with luminary collaborators that include not only her sons, but also Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette, Jeff "Tain" Watts, and James Genus.

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