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Back to Godhead Coltrane and the Maha-Mantra Alice Coltrane’s

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By Satyaraja Dasa Huntington Ashram
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The wife of jazz great John Coltrane, a legend in her own Jaya Jaya Rama
right, met Srila Prabhupada and brought the Lord’s holy
Galleries
names to the ears of thousands. Universal Consciousness
Donate
(1971)
Newsletter Hare Krishna
“When you’re chanting the maha-mantra,” said the late
Sita Ram
Alice Coltrane, “your soul responds, because the soul
knows these names.” The wife of the great jazz Lord of Lords (1972)
saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, she was Sri Rama Ohnedaruth

known among her followers as Turiyasangitananda

Reflection on Creation and
(which she translated as “the Transcendental Lord’s Space (1973)
highest song of bliss”). She continues: “The soul relates Sri Rama Ohnedaruth
to them, the soul is enlivened, the soul is lifted up upon Sita Ram

hearing the names of the Lord. It’s something people

Transcendence (1977)
would open their hearts to and experience. They don’t Radhe Shyam
have to be any certain age – they can even be children. Vrindavana Sanchara
And they don’t even have to understand the meaning of Bhaja Govindam
Sri Nrsimha
the words. Whether they understand or not, the hearing
of that chanting is going to produce their spiritual good.” Radha Krishna Nama
Sankirtana (1977)
Govinda Jai Jai
Hare Krishna

Transfiguration (1978)
Prema
Krishnaya

Marian McPartland’s Piano

Jazz Radio Broadcast (1981)
Prema

Turiya Sings (1982)

Jai Ramachandra
Krishna Krishna
Rama Katha
Yamuna Tira Vihari
Pranadhana

Divine Songs (1987)

Rama Rama
Keshava Murahara
Madhura Manohara Giridhari
Deva Deva
Rama Guru
Hari Narayan
\
Infinite Chants (1990)
Sita Ram
How is it that she spoke so eloquently about Vaishnava Om Rama
spirituality? Who was she, and how did the sounds of Rama Guru
Radhe Govinda
transcendence come to engulf her life so thoroughly, Gopala
transforming her music and, through her, hundreds of Krishna Japaye
thousands of others?
Translinear Light (2004)
Sita Ram
I briefly met her once at the ISKCON temple on Fifty-
Fifth Street in New York City. Sometime before, I had Huntington Ashram
heard her unique version of what we in ISKCON call “the Monastery, World Galaxy
Nrisimha prayers.” Her version was similar to a (2011)
Paramahamsa Lake
traditional tune sung daily at all Hare Krishna temples,
Jaya Jaya Rama
and I wanted to let her know that. It was 1977, and as I
passed her in the temple lobby, I blurted out, “I like your The Ecstatic Music of Alice
music.” She turned with a bright smile and, without Coltrane Turiyasangitananda
(2017)
missing a beat, responded, “It’s not my music. It’s
Om Rama
God’s.” Rama Rama
Rama Guru
Alice McLeod was born in Detroit in 1937. She studied Hari Narayan
classical piano and harmony at an early age, and by her Keshava Murahara
Krishna Japaye
teens she was singing and playing hymns, anthems, and
gospel music for black congregations in Detroit. This Spiritual Eternal – The
soon morphed into bebop and swing as she began to Complete Warner Bros.
frequent jazz clubs in the 1950s. By 1963 she was Studio Recordings (2018)
Hare Krishna
playing professionally with jazz greats such as Lucky
Govinda Jai Jai
Thompson, Johnny Griffin, and Terry Gibbs, and the Radhe-Shyam
following year she met and married John Coltrane. Vrindavana Sanchara
Bhaja Govindam
In 1965, the same year Prabhupada arrived in the West, Sri Nrsimha

Alice filled the large shoes of McCoy Tyner as pianist in

– Compiled by Radhe
Coltrane’s famous quartet, gigging and recording with Govinda Dasa
the legendary band for two years. After her husband’s
death in 1967, she dedicated herself to bringing out the
spiritual in music, something her husband had been
nurturing into an art form for many years. Languages

English
Indeed, John Coltrane’s iconic albums, such as A Love Español
Supreme (1965), exuded the moods of free-jazz that
would soon be developed further in Ascension (1966),
and through these experimental records he inadvertently Links
created a new category of music that jazz aficionados Write for Back to Godhead.
would come to know as Spiritual Jazz. This culminated Subscribe to Back to
in his posthumously released Om (1968) – a masterpiece Godhead
of progressive improvisation, free jazz, and atonal motifs
taken from African and Indian music. This latter
recording included the chanting of selected verses from
the Bhagavad-gita.

While the atmosphere

and sounds of these
records certainly evoked
an otherworldly state of
consciousness, many
spiritual practitioners
noted that they afforded
no practical method of
spiritual procedure and
remained too abstract to
create lasting, tangible results in terms of quantifiable
spiritual advancement. Alice sensed this too and set out
to bring a more fully developed transcendental sound
vibration into her music.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Just before John’s death, both she and her husband had
come to question the Protestant teachings of their
youth. They began pointing East, publicly highlighting
their belief in reincarnation and interest in Indian gurus.
In 1971, Alice said it outright. “The Western Church has
failed, especially with young people. It was set up to
serve needs it’s not meeting. Ask a Swami Hindu monk
or someone else from the East about life after death and
you’ll get answers that are real about direct experience,
about looking to God. It has helped me to go on.”1 In
1970, Alice became a follower of Indian guru Swami
Satchidananda, visiting his headquarters on New York’s
Upper West Side.

Gail Lewis met Alice at New York University in 1971, and

soon after became a co-follower of Swami
Satchidananda, living at his ashram on West Thirteenth
Street. But her interest in the Swami was short-lived,
and she and Alice soon took different paths: While Alice
maintained her spiritual connection with Satchidananda,
Gail moved on to yoga teacher Dr. Ramamurti Mishra,
an associate of Srila Prabhupada when His Divine Grace
first came to the West.

This contact eventually led Gail to Prabhupada, and she

became his disciple, taking initiation as Rasangi Dasi.
After marrying Dharmadhyaksha Dasa, she eventually
relocated to Los Angeles, where her husband was
engaged as a BTG editor.

“Now,” says Rasangi, “Alice Coltrane, it turns out, was

also living in LA at the time – and she was a BTG
subscriber! When Mukunda Dasa (not yet a swami)
found out that she read our magazine, knowing that I
had had a previous relationship with her, he asked me to
contact her and to see if I could rekindle something. By
Krishna’s grace, she was happy to hear from me and
even asked if the devotees could come and help her
learn how to cook authentic Vedic cuisine. So Mukunda
arranged that I would be part of a small crew that went
out to her home to teach culinary science and the
process of offering food to Krishna. This was in 1976.
We would go weekly, cooking, offering, chanting – she
would play piano, accompanying us – and this went on
for quite some time, into 1977. Mukunda and myself,
and a few others, would go regularly. Well, one day she
announced that she wanted to go to India to meet Srila
Prabhupada.”2

Rasangi tells the story of how Alice’s desire came to

fruition.

She wanted a lady to go with her who had been to India before to
show her around. It wasn’t me. I had never been to India. I was still
a new devotee. So, the temple chose Gurutama’s wife, Deva Mata,
who had some experience in India. I really wanted to go, but the
decision had been made. Anyway, I went before Rukmini-
Dvarakadhisha and prayed that I could somehow go along. Really,
my prayer was, “My dear Lord Krishna, I want to go to India and
spend time with my spiritual master in Vrindavan.”

Well, when I got home that day, Dharma was there with the phone,
saying, “Alice Coltrane is on the phone, and she wants to talk to
you.” So I pick up the phone, and it’s Alice, and she says,
“Rasangi, today I got a message from God telling me that you
should go with me to India, not Deva Mata.” She was very serious,
and the temple wanted to accommodate her. So off we went. It
was June 1977. We stayed for about a month. It’s funny because it
was summer, and people tried to dissuade her from going, saying
it would be too hot. But she insisted. “No, I must see Srila
Prabhupada now.” It was as if she knew that he would soon be
departing.

Once they arrived in Vrindavan, Rasangi and Alice

stayed in the same room, waiting to see Srila
Prabhupada. Tamala Krishna Goswami, Prabhupada’s
secretary at the time, arranged for Pradymuna Dasa,
Prabhupada’s Sanskrit editor, to show them Vrindavan.
They were taken to all the main holy places, including
Govardhana and Radha-kunda. Finally, they were
brought into Prabhupada’s room, on two occasions.
Both times, Alice left the room exclaiming, “What a high
being!” It left an impression on Rasangi. She was happy
to see that Alice could appreciate Prabhupada’s exalted
position.

An Eternal Relationship

It is impossible to say where the relationship began, but

we see that Srila Prabhupada corresponded with her on
March 12, before they met, likely as a response to a
letter from her, which was obviously accompanied by
one of her albums:

My dear Turiya,

Please accept my blessings. I have listened to your new record

album, “Radha-Krsna Nama-Sankirtana,” and am very pleased
with your chanting. You have become transcendental. Now
continue to keep yourself in that transcendental state and your life
will be successful. As soon as you chant Govinda Jaya Jaya and
Hare Krishna Maha-mantra you are no longer in the material world.
These are the Vedic verses in favor of chanting:

yan-namadheya-sravananukirtanad

yat-prahvanad yat-smaranad api kvachit

svado ’pi sadyah savanaya kalpate

kutah punas te bhagavan nu darsanat

aho bata sva-paco ’to gariyan

yaj-jihvagre vartate nama tubhyam

tepus tapas te juhuvuh sasnur arya

brahmanuchur nama grnanti ye

“To say nothing of the spiritual advancement of persons who see

the Supreme Person eye to eye, even a person born in the family
of dog-eaters immediately becomes eligible to perform Vedic
sacrifices if he once utters the holy name of the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, or chants about Him, hears about His
pastimes, offers Him obeisances or even remembers Him. Oh how
glorious are they whose tongues are chanting Your holy name!
Even if born in the families of dog-eaters, such persons are
worshipable. Persons who chant the holy name of Your Lordship
must have executed all kinds of austerities and fire sacrifices and
achieved all good manners of the Aryans. To be chanting the holy
name of Your Lordship, they must have bathed at holy places of
pilgrimage, studied the Vedas and fulfilled everything required.”
(Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 3, Ch. 33, v6-7) [missing text]

So here the spiritual potency of chanting the holy name of the

Supreme Lord is greatly stressed. The holy name has to be
chanted to please the Supreme Lord, and not for any sense
gratification. If this pure mentality is there then you become so
glorious that not only do you become purified yourself, but you
become competent to deliver others. So go on doing this nicely
and Krishna will help you make advancement in Krishna
consciousness.

I hope this meets you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

His message to her was clear: She should abandon any

material motivation and chant purely.

By June, just a few months after receiving that letter, she

was in Vrindavan. Tamala Krishna Goswami remembers
the exchange:

Alice Coltrane came to visit Srila Prabhupada. She played some of

the pieces from her latest record. Prabhupada very much liked the
Nrisimha-deva prayers and blessed her for it as well as for
chanting Hare Krishna.

After taking darshana of Sri Sri Krishna-Balarama, Srila

Prabhupada met with “Turiya” Alice Coltrane. Srila Prabhupada
answered her questions, including one about the number of rounds
she should chant and whether she could chant them mentally.
“You should chant twenty-four hours a day. But minimum sixteen
rounds. Chanting any way that is convenient. But chanting with
voice is better because it benefits not just yourself but others as
well.” Srila Prabhupada stressed not to concoct anything. He had
me read Bhagavad-gita 16.23 with purport, which condemns
whimsical activities. He stressed that she study the books
carefully. It was clear that she had enjoyed her stay here
immensely. After she had left, Srila Prabhupada said she was very
sincere. If she chanted and read the books carefully, she would be
a nice devotee. Prabhupada was very pleased that she promised
to lead a kirtana at three of our upcoming Rathayatra festivals. He
said this would be a practical demonstration of how our movement
united all people, black and white.3

At that same meeting, Prabhupada approved her

upcoming performance at three Rathayatra festivals:
New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, which she
did. She had also asked His Divine Grace what chant
she should focus on at the festivals. He answered that
the maha-mantra should surely be the heart of her
kirtana: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna,
Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare
Hare. With that instruction, she took his leave.

A Mantra Supreme

We can see Alice Coltrane’s trajectory – and her entire

spiritual evolution – by what she recorded on her final
group of albums, released on the famous jazz label
Impulse!/Warner Bros: Universal Consciousness (1971),
World Galaxy (1971), Lord of Lords (1972), Eternity
(1975), Transcendence (1977), Radha Krishna Nama
Sankirtana (1977), and Transfiguration (1978).

On these albums she stays true to her jazz roots, along

with her avant-garde and musically abstract leanings,
but she also experiments with a string orchestra,
tambura, harp, piano, and electric organ as she never
has before. For jazz traditionalists, she had always been
criticized for being a tad too creative, over-exploring
rhythmically nonrepresentational motifs and uncommon
musical pathways. But now she had gone even further,
incorporating Indian music and almost cacophonous,
nontraditional rhythms. But there was something else,
too. On her later albums, one with an initiated ear could
detect a marked development toward the
transcendental sound she had been looking for:
Vaishnava mantras.

The late musicologist Franya Berkman analyzes Alice’s

contribution by looking at her two most popular
devotional pieces, “Hare Krishna” and “Sita Rama”:

“Hare Krishna” and “Sita Rama” are the most strikingly original
compositions on the album. Both are based on traditional Indian
chants. During her career as a bandleader, Alice Coltrane saw the
potential of bhajans as a transcendent, avant-garde vehicle for
rhythm section and orchestra. Thus, rather than simply arranging
the traditional hymns, she created a new devotional genre modeled
as much upon the participatory and functional aspects of the
music as the original melodic material. To the best of my
knowledge, no other jazz or classical composer has used Indian
devotional music in this fashion. In her adaptation of “Hare
Krishna,” the entire ensemble plays an opening rubato theme in
unison while Rashied Ali adds a patina of cymbals and bells. The
opening melody appears to be an invocation and could very well
match the text “Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama.”

“Sita Rama,” her second bhajan arrangement, is perhaps the most

“Indian” of her tunes thus far considered. The strings are absent
here, and the tambura and drums begin by establishing the drone.
Another slowly-expanding organ improvisation emerges
resembling alap, the unmetered melodic exposition of raga in
Indian classical music. This is followed by a more clearly defined
melody that becomes the basis of improvisation. This structure is
quite typical of Indian improvisational music. However, the entire
conception is literally “jazzed up” with the sound of the rhythm
section and overdubbed harp arpeggios. After this sonic
environment has been established, Alice Coltrane closes with an
entirely new ethereal musical moment using only harp and
percussion.4

One might wonder if she received these chants from her

guru, and she did, but she learned their true meaning
and elaboration from the guru of gurus, Srila
Prabhupada.

Her penultimate album, Transcendence, has been

lauded as a masterpiece of modern jazz. The technique
and instrumentation vary widely throughout the album.
One can hear her unique harp playing accompanied by
a string quartet on the sweet-sounding “Radhe-Shyam”
and the title track, setting the table for “Vrindavan
Sanchara,” a moody solo piece wherein Coltrane plays
harp, tamboura, wind chimes, and tambourine. She
even engaged devotees on several tracks, including
Mukunda (mridanga, karatalas) and Jagajivana
(mridanga), and Chitsukhananda, Dharmadhyaksha,
Mangalananda, Rasangi, and others (backing vocals).
On this record she tried to capture the mood of
Vrindavan, which is exactly where she was when the
album was released in the summer of 1977 – with Srila
Prabhupada.

Rathayatra and Beyond

To prepare for that summer’s Rathayatra festival in New

York, she visited Manhattan’s Fifty-Fifth Street temple.
For her it was both discouraging and inspirational –
seeing the devotees absorbed in kirtana with the force
of a spiritual volcano was humbling. She saw
congregational chanting as she had never seen it before.
The night before Rathayatra especially, Dinanatha, an
African-American devotee from D.C. who was
particularly adept at Gaudiya Vaishnava kirtana, was
leading in the temple room, and the entire room was
vibrating with spirituality. It was New York kirtana at its
finest, with hundreds of devotees making the building
shake. Literally.

That same evening, Alice had been asked to do a recital

in that very temple room, and for this purpose she came
downstairs to the front lobby to meet Rameshvara Dasa,
who was hosting her. He met her there and invited her to
join the kirtana in the temple, saying that she could give
her recital immediately thereafter. She popped her head
in to see the celebration and quickly closed the door.

Turning around to Rameshvara, she said, “I can’t follow

that. That’s way too transcendental. I’ll just bring the
energy down.”

The following day, however, she performed at

Rathayatra. And she brought the energy up. Way up.
Although the festival was on fire from start to finish, she
was among its most anticipated highlights. Indeed, she
thrilled the crowd in Washington Square Park with her
Gospel-flavored and jazz-inflected renderings of
traditional chants. And, following the recommendations
that Prabhupada had given her in Vrindavan, she
focused on the maha-mantra as the main song of the
day.

Friendship with Devotees

As the years passed, she continued to associate with

devotees and to use her devotional community, Sai
Anantam Ashram, in the Santa Monica mountains, in the
service of Lord Krishna. Says Jayashacinandana Dasa:

In the spring of 1978, I first met Alice Coltrane, at her home in

Woodland Hills, California. A devotee from the L.A. temple had
invited me to meet her and join her for monthly kirtans. I brought
my harmonium and mridanga, and because she had already heard
recordings of my singing, she invited me to lead the bhajans and
kirtans at that first meeting and at every other meeting after that.
We became good friends through spiritual music. Sometime later, a
devotee named Vishnave Dasa told me that she gave me a huge
compliment, saying that I had one of the most beautiful voices she
had ever heard. I played percussion at our kirtan sessions, she
would play the organ, and her son John Coltrane, Jr. played the
upright bass. I was very saddened to learn from her later that John
had died in an automobile accident.

When I was in New York in October of 1978 I got a call at the

temple from Alice, who asked me if I would play mridanga with her
group the next night. They were playing a show at New York's
fabulous Beacon Theater, a major concert venue there. She gave
me the address and told me just to come to the stage door early
for sound check, and then at 8 p.m. we started our part of the
show. During the sound check I learned that we were the front
band for John McLaughlin’s Indian fusion group Shakti, which I
was excited to hear. I am glad that at the time I didn’t know who
was playing tablas for Shakti, as I would have been a bit
intimidated playing my mridanga before he went on. It was Zakir
Hussein, the son of Alla Rakha, Ravi Shankar’s virtuoso tabla
player. After the show, though, Zakir said I did just fine, which was
a relief for me.5

In the mid-1990s she held large programs on her

property with Bhakti Tirtha Swami and perhaps twenty
of his disciples. She performed transcendental melodies
on her grand piano for the devotees’ pleasure. That
same year, she gathered together with Bhakti Tirtha
Swami and Radhanath Swami at Raga Dasi’s home,
with hours of chanting and prasadam served for a
packed house.

Until her passing in 2007, she remained favorable to

Krishna and His devotees, honoring Prabhupada’s
request to focus on the maha-mantra. She was not a
full-on member of ISKCON, but she assisted whenever
she could, and she did receive Prabhupada’s grace.
Perhaps she is still chanting, wherever she is.

Notes

1. See Dews, Angela. “Alice Coltrane,” Essence. December

1971, 42–43. Quoted in Franya Berkman, “Appropriating
Universality: The Coltranes and 1960s Spirituality” in
American Studies, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Spring 2007), pp. 41–
62.
2. From a personal interview with the author, September 5,
2020.
3. TKG’s Diary, July 1, 1977, p. 99.
4. Franya Berkman, ibid., pp. 53–54.
5. From a personal interview with the author, September 8,
2020.

About the Author:

Satyaraja Dasa

Satyaraja Dasa (Steven Rosen) is an

initiated disciple of His Divine Grace
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada. He is also founding
editor of the Journal of Vaishnava
Studies and associate editor of Back to Godhead
magazine.

Read more

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