Minutes That Will Make You Love Alice Coltrane | Hacker News Reader

Minutes That Will Make You Love Alice Coltrane

nytimes.com

70 pointstintinnabula19 comments

Coltrane's influence reaches as far as the underground "bass music" sound of the 2010s as invented by her nephew Flying Lotus, and now the Top 40 is frequented by her ashram protege Doja Cat. Flying Lotus opened his Essential Mix with "Galaxy In Turiya".

https://www.mixesdb.com/w/2008-11-29_-_Flying_Lotus_-_Essent...

Doha Cat being associated always confused me. Alice did not actively run the ashram past 1995. Doja was born in 1995. How could Alice have had any significant impact (as a person, not as an artist) on Doja Cat’s career and especially early growth as an artist? It feels like name dropping.

A mushroom trip this summer opened my ears to Alice Coltrane. I walked out into a garden as this song was playing randomly from a playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn36bzFZeg4&ab_channel=Alice... (Coltrane at her more serene).

I had a magical moment where I was listening to her music and looking up at the sky through the tree crowns. After that I've been listening to her regularly.

Alice Coltrane rocks.

She is so great. Go listen to this for a couple of minutes of musical heaven https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUMuDWDVd20

I hadn't seen this format of article before, it feels like the old web in ways.

Can't recommend enough the song "Lovely Sky Boat"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhmwChxResw

As a fan of Alice Coltrane, it's kind of frustrating that NYT would bother to put this together and interview all these people and then put these tiny 30 second, completely-out-of-context audio snippets. I encourage anyone who checks the article out to listen to the complete tracks. What can you possibly get out of a 30 second clip?!

There is a Spotify playlist at the end but I don't care for Spotify. These are amazing and I think I am falling in love with Alice Coltrane. Not to compare them, but I'd also recommend Anoushka Shankar for spiritually inspired music.

Blue Nile - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Dd4UGt5rg

Spiritual Eternal - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orVhbSTqtoE

Pranadhana - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QerMEr3VmKk

Prema - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4frDCaVEzI

A Love Supreme - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89c00fGC838

The Hymn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtfiFMp9HOg

Keshava Murahara - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKUJdFsmzpQ

Ptah, the El Daoud - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkh19hnlvyc

Journey in Satchidananda - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0O9L7KXkC0

Hari Narayan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17P-gSE66TI

Affinity (Live) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0B2MICqCFk

Jagadishwar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06a1iOXw5K0

Oh Allah - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vp1F6cf1Gw

Re: spiritually-inspired music, see also Pharoah Sanders and Leon Thomas. A few of my favorites:

Leon Thomas's "The Creator Has a Master Plan": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoYnvw-97II

Pharoah Sanders and Leon Thomas's "Sun Song": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ07KWhbIj8

On the topic, not really in the same lineage as the above, but you might like a favorite album of mine, Good God! Apocryphal Hymns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSRcvn7l0KI&list=OLAK5uy_ldI...

I agree, it might even be off-putting for some listeners to hear a random bit of her music out of context from the rest of the track (or even album).

"Journey in Satchidananda" I'm pretty sure is my favorite album of all time. I first heard it when I was maybe 16, and 20+ years later I still listen to it at least a few times per month. I'd suggest anyone that wants to listen to her music to put that one on and listen to it the whole way through. The album is both approachable and gorgeous.

The actual song Journey in Satchidananda is one of my favorite pieces of music.

I went down a rabbit hole one afternoon finding various live performances of it, since it seemed so well-suited for extended jazz renditions. Here’s my favorite of the bunch:

https://youtu.be/w2bGe8kBPS4

For the gentle people out there wondering what is Satchidananda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satcitananda

It seems also be a reference to the self-named Swami Satchidananda who provided Alice Coltrane with some guidance and help after the death of her husband.

The title is a play on words referencing the name of the Swami. Alice 'took a journey' in Satchitananda (guided by the Swami) which helped her through the mourning process.

Vishnu Wood, who played on the album (and used to host a jam session we'd go to when I was in college), did an interview with Rolling Stone about it. [1] His guru was (is?) Satchitananda and he introduced her to him.

Satchitananda's Integral Yoga space is still in Manhattan and hosts workshops there (I took one with Laraaji there once).

[1] https://vishuwood-safarieast.com/rolling-stone-magazine-inte...

I'm assuming it's a licensing issue. More than snippets isn't "fair use"

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