Berkman, Franya J.

- ​Monument Eternal: The Music of Alice Coltrane 

MUSI 32805 Proseminar in Music 1900-Present  
 
Abstract: ​In ​Monument Eternal: The Music of Alice Coltrane​, ethnomusicologist Franya Berkman 
provides a biographical overview of the life and works of Alice Coltrane, placing particular emphasis 
on the role of spirituality in shaping her musical philosophy and compositional sensibilities. Prefaced 
with a vignette detailing the author’s own discovery of Coltrane’s music at a Brooklyn yoga studio, the 
book opens with a description of the devotional ​bhajans​ encountered at Coltrane’s ashram, taking the 
conclusion of her musical and spiritual journey as a starting point to explore the role of spirituality, 
community, hybridity and multiculturalism throughout the artist’s career and opus. Berkman sets out 
to bring Alice out from the shadow of her oft-depicted role as John’s romantic partner and mentee, 
instead emphasizing their reciprocal influence and Alice’s personal trajectory and contributions to the 
jazz world. Berkman argues for an understanding of spirituality as a political act; for the role of 
hybridity and cultural allocation in establishing a specifically black women’s political ideology; and for 
an interpretation of Alice Coltrane’s role as a mother, partner, and collaborative musician as 
representing subtle forms of resistance despite not adhering to prevailing feminist and otherwise 
revolutionary political ideologies. The book provides musicological analyses of works spanning the 
breadth of Coltrane’s career, beginning with her early explorations of bebop and gospel, continuing 
through her collaborations with John Coltrane, and ending with her more explicit explorations of 
Hindu spirituality in the wake of John’s death. 
 
Chapter 1​provides an overview of Coltrane’s formative musical and sociocultural experiences, 
focusing in particular on her role as a pianist and organist within the African-American Baptist 
church, establishing an early childhood foundation for her understanding of the intersections between 
music, spirituality, and community, alongside her technical prowess as an improviser. Berkman traces 
Coltrane’s early participation in the “salon society” of the Detroit jazz scene as a bebop pianist as well 
as her subsequent career in Paris and New York. 
 
Chapter 2​looks at Alice Coltrane’s career playing with John Coltrane and their mutual influence 
both musically and spiritually, challenging conventional portrayals of this relationship as one of 
mentor and disciple. Berkman describes their early explorations of spirituality and their development 
of a “multicultural theory of musical transcendence,” situating this ideology within the broader 
context of religious and spiritual transformation in the 60’s and the Black Power movement. 
 
Chapter 3​explores the transformation in Alice’s spiritual and compositional sensibilities following 
John’s death in 1967. The chapter divides her work into three eras: first, that immediately following 
John’s death, in which her work assimilates his creative strategies and ideologies while also reflecting 
Alice’s experiences of emotional trauma and spiritual purification; second, her explorations of 
Hinduism under her guru Swami Satchidananda and the subsequent spiritual underpinnings of her 
compositions, as well as the influence of Indian culture and Hinduism on mainstream American 
consciousness, specifically in the Black community; and finally, the period after Coltrane returned 
from India in which she explored a “totality concept,” juxtaposing diverse musical identities and 
influences and espousing musical universalism. 
 
Chapter 4​marks Alice’s shift from secular life to a life of spiritual devotion, and her development of a 
unique spiritual philosophy emphasizing the divinity of the soul and the importance of a personal, 
unmediated relationship with God. Berkman explores Coltrane’s composition of bhajans that serve 
her community at Sai Anantam Ashram, whereby she draws on her diverse range of musical influences 
including bebop and gospel in her interpretations of sacred Hindu chants. 
 
Quotes for Discussion: 
 
“But this is not a jazz biography; rather, it is an exploration of the music of a woman and devotional 
musician whose contributions transcend such genre-specific constraints. Understanding Alice 
Coltrane’s superior artistry and her religious music expands the definition of jazz and challenges the 
process of canonization. It also provides an opportunity to discuss experimental music created by 
black composers and the phenomena of musical and spiritual hybridity in the late twentieth century 
on a broader scale. For lack of a single, concise term, this study of Alice Coltrane is best described as an 
ethnomusicological life history that prioritizes the role of spirituality in her musical aesthetics and in 
the cultural spaces she inhabited.” (3) 

“...situating the explorations of 1960s jazz within a purely political framework is insufficient, 
particularly with respect to an artist like Alice Coltrane. Her music and commentary from the 
mid-1960s onward stressed the personal and the spiritual, not the political. I do not mean to suggest 
that the religious and political facets of culture ought to stand at oppositional poles. Rather, they 
should be viewed, in the words of Robert Ellwood, “as bands in a single spectrum” (Ellwood 1994, 9). 
Alice Coltrane’s spiritual pursuits should not be posed against the political activism of the era and 
therefore overlooked. Her spiritual explorations should be seen as a creative, energizing, and 
productive alternative to more explicit forms of political protest—an alternative that may, indeed, 
have deeply radical implications.” (15) 

“In short, John Coltrane’s creative ideology was deeply intertwined with his spiritual philosophy, 
which rested on three basic tenets and which Alice fully embraced. First, music making is based on 
personal spiritual expression, and the artist should be fully committed to expressing an authentic self as 
a musician. Second, music making should be universal, erasing aesthetic boundaries and proscriptions 
about style. And third, such musical universality requires branching out: it is inclusive, pluralistic, and 
multicultural. The personalized, eclectic, and global nature of John Coltrane’s spiritual and creative 
ideology was consistent with the new religious culture of the 1960s.” (53)