Michelle Coltrane On Alice Coltrane's New Recording Kirtan: Turiya Sings

Alice Coltrane’s ashram album Kirtan: Turiya Sings gets first release.Michelle Coltrane joins Maggie to discuss her Mother's latest release from Impulse! Records Kirtan: Turiya Sings . After releasing the wondrous Transfiguration in 1978, documenting a live concert with drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Reggie Workman, Alice Coltrane retreated from public life to serve as swamini in an ashram she founded in Agoura Hills, California. Though she resurfaced briefly at John Coltrane tribute concerts during the 1990s and released a final album, Translinear Light, in 2004, it was widely thought she had abandoned music for over two decades. However, during that time, she was playing alone and with others for Sunday "kirtans" (services), and she occasionally recorded devotional chants for her followers. In 2017, Luaka Bop released The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda; its music was compiled from four privately pressed (and professionally recorded) cassettes. The first of these was 1982's Turiya Sings, and marked the first recording of her singing voice, accompanied by organ, strings, synths, and in places, minimal sound effects. Commercially unavailable, it has been streaming on YouTube for years. Kirtan: Turiya Sings, issued by Impulse!, presents that album in a startling new context. This rare mix -- unheard even by Ravi Coltrane until he was producing Translinear Light -- presents Alice's prayerful rendition of nine traditional Hindu chants called "bhajans," offered with only her Wurlitzer organ in support.Source: https://www.allmusic.com/album/kirtan-turiya-sings-mw0003535709Source: https://www.alicecoltrane.comSource: http://www.impulserecords.com/artistsThis episode is from an archive from the KPFK program Profiles adapted for podcast. Host Maggie LePique, a radio veteran since the 1980's at NPR in Kansas City Mo. She began her radio career in Los Angeles in the early 1990's and has worked for Pacifica station KPFK Radio in Los Angeles since 1994. Send us Fan MailSupport the show@profileswithmaggielepique@maggielepique