Description
The first full-length biography of Alice Coltrane, the jazz musician andspiritual leader who laid the groundwork for new age, ambient andelectronic music.
Musician, wife, mother, daughter, sister, grandmother, collaborator, guru, iconoclast:Alice Coltrane is one of the most forward-looking yet misunderstood artists of thelast fifty years.
For most of her life – and even in the decades since her passing – she was seenmerely as the widow of the late John Coltrane, one of jazz’s ‘great men’ who haslong been worshipped with an almost religious fervour and devotion. Yet ever soslowly, that level of love and appreciation is also being bestowed upon Alice. Herinfluence can be felt on new generations of musicians, especially women, people ofcolour and artists who seek to combine jazz with other musical forms. In Coltrane’smusic, we can observe the transformation of Black American music in microcosm:the gospel roots giving rise to jazz and bebop, then intermingling with soul andR&B, then onto rock, modern classical, psychedelia and new age.
Cosmic Music is both the first full-length biography of Alice and a long-overdue corrective to the historical and critical record. Based on extensive research andscores of new interviews by acclaimed music journalist Andy Beta, it is the definitiveaccount of a visionary whose influence is only just beginning to be appreciated infull.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.