Cosmic Music: The Life, Art, and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane by Andy Beta

Cosmic Music book cover

Author Andy Beta

Much gratitude to Grand Central Publishing, Da Capo Press, and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Cosmic Music: The Life, Art, and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane  by Andy Beta. As Beta notes in his introduction, Alice Coltrane has often been known more for being the wife of John Coltrane, and as a result, her musical reputation has often been maligned by jazz traditionalists who either assumed that she became a part of Coltrane’s later groups and leveraged her relationship to pursue a record deal on Impulse, the record label that John Coltrane popularized. As a result, Beta’s biography of Alice Coltrane not only illuminates on her life but really makes the argument that Alice deserves recognition as a musical innovator who took John Coltrane’s ideas and ever evolving notions of music and continued it in a new direction. Beta also notes that there is limited information about Alice’s life and musical work, and this also makes a critical biography like this not only challenging, but also necessary to assert her place in the musical world. In fact, I wasn’t even aware that Alice’s records were out of print for a while. I became aware of her own albums around the time that iTunes launched. I was already a massive John Coltrane fan, and was excited to learn more about how Alice’s participation in the later quartets might have influenced these albums. Beta has a great introduction to the book where he traces his slow exposure to jazz, especially being challenged about how jazz is often defined. Albums like On the Corner by Miles Davis and Om by John Coltrane don’t fit neatly into that traditional jazz schema, and I too was somewhat challenged by these albums, although they eventually grew on me. Alice Coltrane’s albums also don’t fit neatly into the traditional jazz paradigms, often featuring harp, chanting, and slowed trance-like piano work that many reviewers and jazz purists also failed to appreciate at the time. While I don’t remember immediately falling in love with Alice Coltrane’s albums the way I felt about John’s (“Something About John Coltrane”), her music did resonate with me, leaving a kind of emotional impression, like the lingering reverberations of harp or piano strings that I continue to recall. Beta likewise helps to argue the importance of Alice’s music to not just Jazz and Coltrane’s legacy, but also to the emerging field of new age music and self-released cassettes by musical explorers who were creating a new, almost unclassifiable idiosyncratic field of music that relied more on emotional intuition than anything else. I was mostly familiar with Alice’s output from the late 60s and early 70s, and it was interesting to read more (and listen to) her music from the late 70s and 1980s. Furthermore, I didn’t realize that Alice moved out of the Coltrane home in Long Island in the 1970s and settled in Southern California, eventually establishing an Ashram community where she continued to make music, but performed less often and didn’t really record any albums for major labels. That is, she ended up creating spiritual music that was largely based on Hindu prayers and devotions (Bhajans). Like other spiritual questers of the early 80s, Alice Coltrane released these recordings along with some self-published books, on her own and sold them in independent book, record and health food stores. 

What was most fascinating to me in this book was how Alice Coltrane transformed from Alice McLeod to Alice Coltrane to eventually Swamini or Turiyasangitananda and became a spiritual guide who led her Ashram community of many followers. Throughout the latter third of the book, Beta details how Alice underwent a spiritual challenge that followed John Coltrane’s book. Some of her family and friends noted that it was like a breakdown and there were some serious physical threats that Alice experienced and overcame. However, she also seems to have emerged from these experiences with an increased equanimity and insight into her spiritual direction. Throughout this experience, Alice began increasing her meditation and used this to not only seek direction from the Lord, but this also seemed to influence her music, which became increasingly spiritual and devotional. Beta provides not only well-documented research into the production of this music, both the concerts and the recording sessions, but also some well-done description and analysis of the music as well. This was definitely a strength of the book that made me more curious about learning about the later recordings and lesser known music of Alice Coltrane. Furthermore, Beta did well making the argument that Alice Coltrane’s music was in line with John Coltrane’s continued exploratory direction in music. As he notes, John Coltrane’s music rarely stood still, and his final years saw his quartets continue to push and expand the notion of jazz, not without controversy and confusion. As Beta argues, Alice’s music may not fit all of the jazz criteria, but it marks a continued evolution and bold exploratory nature that is also marked by personal devotion and spiritualism that was influential to both John’s and Alice’s backgrounds in the church. 

Beta’s book is a fascinating look at a sometimes overlooked, under-appreciated, and even maligned, but still important musical innovator in the spiritual jazz and new age music genres. I didn’t realize how much Alice’s music influenced the field of new age music, and how devotional and idiosyncratic it is. Beta’s research and analysis make a strong case for Alice’s own identity beyond the wife of John Coltrane, and as an influential figure in several different musical genres. There’s a lot to like in this book if you are a jazz fan or even a fan of more experimental and spiritual music. Alice Coltrane led a fascinating life, especially after she left the spotlight and lived a more monastic life in her Ashram. Nevertheless, at times, Beta’s writing meanders and digresses like a long free jazz solo, dancing around the theme or melody. I found this especially in the first section that details Alice McLeod’s life growing up in Detroit. Part of this was because, as Beta notes, there’s just not a lot of biographical or critical studies on Alice Coltrane. Beta uses other texts and biographies to give readers further context of what growing up in Detroit was like for African Americans like Alice. For example, he uses Barry Gordy’s biography to present some idea of the music scene, but he also provides evidence of events like the Detroit Race Riot from the 1940s to provide evidence of the inequality and limited opportunities that African Americans faced at this time in Detroit. Beta also uses biographical information from Aretha Franklin, who was somewhat of a contemporary of Alice Coltrane, and this helps to show how many Detroit musicians started out in Black Churches, learning Gospel Music and bringing this kind of spirituality to their own music, whether it was soul, rhythm and blues, or jazz. I appreciated this context, and I understand that Beta is deftly using secondary sources to provide insight into Alice’s own background and development as a musician, but sometimes these passages were long and not as well connected to Alice’s life. I occasionally found myself wondering whether I was reading a biography of Alice Coltrane or someone else. Nevertheless, the second and third parts of the book that detail Alice’s marriage and life with John Coltrane and her life as a spiritual leader in California were more focused and fascinating. These were the stronger parts of the book that I thoroughly enjoyed and found so compelling. Overall Cosmic Music is a fascinating and necessary book, and one that jazz fans and others who are musical explorers should read. Highly recommended!