MW Alice Coltrane - Spritual Jazz

What this episode covers

For me in my life, music has always been magic. The greatest source of it - a mystical well where I, with my meager human shaped bucket, can, at any time in any place, gather that elixir to hydrate my soul. And as we at Missing Witches also gather names to add to the list of people who help us define what magic is, what a soul is, what it might mean to be a Witch, I hear the music of Alice Coltrane. Alice Coltrane who, no stranger to loss, found music, and found God. Alice released or played on more than 20 albums, wrote at least three books, opened an Ashram, but she’s probably best known as Wife of Saxophonist John Coltrane. We see this all the time. Wife Of more famous but likely less interesting Man, influencing from behind and beside the spotlight. So let’s take today to dig through my record collection and amplify the tones of Alice Coltrane who hoped her music would be “a form of meditation and spiritual awakening for those who listen with their inner ear.” (liner notes - Journey…) Let’s listen to her story with our inner ears, and hear her music with our guts. In 1972, she told DownBeat magazine, "I would go through all the great scriptures of the world, and in every religion I found the same thought: 'The divine sound is the creative force in the universe.' Music is that sound."