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chapter two Manifestation 3 Of course, John Coltrane is the one who inspires everybody, if you were fortunate enough to be in his presence in those days. He would always encourage you to fully express what you had. Not half of it, because it’s not made that way, or three-quarters—the entire experience of the expressive self. Truth on your instrument. That just opens so many doors, so many avenues, so many vistas, so many plateaus. You could hear your sound, music, light coming from the ethereal, heavenly realms. When you played in octaves that you would never go—your bass area, and your contrabass area, or your tenor area. You heard all kinds of things that would have just been left alone, never a part of your discovery or appreciation. —Alice Coltrane In February 1966, Alice McLeod, now Alice Coltrane, made her first recording with her husband John in a San Francisco studio, which was posthumously issued as “Manifestation” on the cd Cosmic Music. Her stunning and seemingly overnight transformation from a Detroit bebop pianist to a champion of the new music evident on this recording speaks to the profound impact of John Coltrane as a musical role model. It also raises the question of how she acquired these new techniques. She had not been participating at jam sessions or performing club dates devoted to free jazz. To the contrary, shortly after Alice McLeod and John Coltrane met at Birdland in July 1963, they began their life together as a family, and she gave up steady work as a musician. While she was touring, Alice had asked her aunt to care for Alice’s daughter, Michelle. Now, after a joyful reunion with Michelle, Alice soon found herself pregnant. She and John had three boys within three years: John Junior, 1964–85; Ravi, born 1965; and Oran, born in 1967).1 Her discography indicates this dramatic turn of events, with its gap of two and a half years between her last studio session with Terry Gibbs and her 1966 recording debut with her husband. In 1966 when Alice recorded “Manifestation,” it was not clear that she would become John Coltrane’s regular pianist. However, soon after the 47 monument eternal / 48 February recording session, John asked her to join his new group, featuring Rashied Ali on drums, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Pharoah Sanders on woodwinds. This was a highly controversial decision in the jazz world: John Coltrane’s previous “classic quartet,” featuring the pianist McCoy Tyner and the drummer Elvin Jones, had won him great public notoriety. Tyner’s distinctive and innovative approach as an accompanist had also been crucial to John Coltrane’s artistic development. For any pianist, these would have been large shoes to fill.2 Furthermore, John was exploring extremely dissonant, free-form musical templates that were alienating many of his fans. As Alice put it: “When he became avant-garde, as they termed it, he lost many people, many followers. They didn’t like it, they didn’t approve of it, they didn’t appreciate it. And there was no way he could go back, there was no road to return to. It was his commitment, it was his decision” (A. Coltrane, interview with Palmer, 1991). Despite the controversy surrounding the dissolution of his previous allstar band, the direction of his new music, and the serious health problems that emerged during the last year and a half of his life, John Coltrane recorded a significant amount of material with Alice and his quintet, with the support of Bob Theile and the Impulse! label. Nearly all of this music was issued posthumously, and a good portion has only recently been released. Fortunately, there is now substantial documentation of John’s late work and Alice’s musical contributions to her husband’s ensemble, which can be heard on the albums Cosmic Music, recorded 1966–68; Live at the Village Vanguard Again! 1966; Live in Japan, 1966; Expression, 1967; Stellar Regions, 1967; and The Olatunji Concert, 1967. Clearly, John Coltrane had a profound influence on Alice’s musicianship. Even though she had not been on stage for many months, she had been immersed in her husband’s music, so that when she joined him in the recording studio, she was attuned to his compositional sensibilities. Furthermore , Coltrane was an effective and encouraging bandleader who always achieved tremendous results from his players. Playing solos on John’s compositions , Alice was no longer constrained by meters...

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