Alice Coltrane

A memorial service for Alice Coltrane, a jazz performer and composer who was also a spiritual leader known by her Sanskrit name Turiyasangitananda, will be held Jan. 27 at 1 p.m. at the Sai Anantam Ashram Center, 3528 Triunfo Canyon Road, Agoura. Information: (818) 865-0409. Coltrane died Friday of respiratory failure at the age of 69.

MUSIC As a roiling tide of diverse electronic music sweeps the U.S. - especially the madcap "beat music" that Flying Lotus and the Low End Theory club night in Lincoln Heights helped popularize - Steven Ellison's new album as FlyLo, "Until the Quiet Comes," is an attempt to reclaim his own focus. The album, Ellison's fourth full-length, comes two years after 2010's "Cosmogramma" and a sea change in the American electronica scene. "Cosmogramma" was indebted to the astral free-jazz legacy of his family (his aunt is Alice Coltrane and his cousin is saxophonist Ravi Coltrane)

Alice Coltrane, the jazz performer and composer who was inextricably linked with the adventurous musical improvisations of her late husband, legendary saxophonist John Coltrane, has died. She was 69. Coltrane died Friday at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center in West Hills, according to an announcement from the family's publicist. She had been in frail health for some time and died of respiratory failure.

About an hour before Steven Ellison's debut performance at the Hollywood Bowl as Flying Lotus last month, he got news that made his blood run cold. The elaborate audio-visual rig he'd prepared for his set was screwing up. He'd planned to debut an immersive array of projections on a mesh screen in front of him while he performed his ethereal and beat-chopped electronica. Thousands upon thousands of fans were outside waiting for him. But minutes before his set, they just couldn't make the thing work.

Alice McCleod met John Coltrane in 1962, and the next five years could not have been more full. Alice, a jazz pianist, was 26. Coltrane, a tenor and soprano saxophonist, was 10 years older and already a jazz great. The couple's friendship quickly turned to love. They married and had four children. Alice became the keyboard player in Coltrane's jazz quartet. Through him, she learned to play the harp. He also introduced her to Eastern philosophy, religion, music and meditation.

The first Hindu temple in the San Fernando Valley has opened in a small, nondescript wooden building on a busy Chatsworth street. Although its humble beginning doesn't compare to the elegant complex of Hindu shrines near Malibu Canyon, the temple nevertheless has carved out a distinction in a uniquely Southern California way. The swami for the Chatsworth temple is Alice Coltrane, a black convert to Hinduism and widow of celebrated jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.

The first Hindu temple in the San Fernando Valley has opened in a small, nondescript wooden building on a busy Chatsworth street. Although its humble beginning doesn't compare to the elegant complex of Hindu shrines near Malibu Canyon, the temple nevertheless has carved out a distinction in a uniquely Southern California way. The swami for the Chatsworth temple is Alice Coltrane, a black convert to Hinduism and widow of celebrated jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.

The 75th anniversary of John Coltrane's birth was celebrated Saturday in an event that despite its considerable length was filled with joyful acknowledgment of a remarkable life. Although the actual birth date was Sept. 23, the Coltrane family elected to move the program to a weekend evening at the Beverly Hilton to make it available to the largest number of celebrants. And the list of musicians willing and eager to contribute their talents was large and impressive.

The second annual John Coltrane Festival drew a somewhat sparse but enthusiastic crowd Saturday to the Wiltern Theater. Alice Coltrane, now known as Swami Turiyasangitanada, is mainly active as the spiritual teacher who runs the Vedantic Center in Agoura, where she provides students with meditation instruction. Her appearance at the Wiltern climaxed an evening devoted mainly to the music of her husband, who died in 1967.

MUSIC As a roiling tide of diverse electronic music sweeps the U.S. - especially the madcap "beat music" that Flying Lotus and the Low End Theory club night in Lincoln Heights helped popularize - Steven Ellison's new album as FlyLo, "Until the Quiet Comes," is an attempt to reclaim his own focus. The album, Ellison's fourth full-length, comes two years after 2010's "Cosmogramma" and a sea change in the American electronica scene. "Cosmogramma" was indebted to the astral free-jazz legacy of his family (his aunt is Alice Coltrane and his cousin is saxophonist Ravi Coltrane)

Rashied Ali, a free-jazz drummer who backed John Coltrane and accompanied him in a ground-breaking duet album in the final months of the jazz master's life, died Wednesday in New York City. He was 76. His wife, Patricia Ali, said he died at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital of a blood clot in his lung. Ali joined Coltrane's group in the mid-1960s during the saxophonist's period of avant-garde jazz experimentation. When Coltrane decided to use two drummers in a concert at the Village Gate in November 1965, he chose Ali to back up drummer Elvin Jones.

A memorial service for Alice Coltrane, a jazz performer and composer who was also a spiritual leader known by her Sanskrit name Turiyasangitananda, will be held Jan. 27 at 1 p.m. at the Sai Anantam Ashram Center, 3528 Triunfo Canyon Road, Agoura. Information: (818) 865-0409. Coltrane died Friday of respiratory failure at the age of 69.

Alice Coltrane, the jazz performer and composer who was inextricably linked with the adventurous musical improvisations of her late husband, legendary saxophonist John Coltrane, has died. She was 69. Coltrane died Friday at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center in West Hills, according to an announcement from the family's publicist. She had been in frail health for some time and died of respiratory failure.

The 75th anniversary of John Coltrane's birth was celebrated Saturday in an event that despite its considerable length was filled with joyful acknowledgment of a remarkable life. Although the actual birth date was Sept. 23, the Coltrane family elected to move the program to a weekend evening at the Beverly Hilton to make it available to the largest number of celebrants. And the list of musicians willing and eager to contribute their talents was large and impressive.

The first Hindu temple in the San Fernando Valley has opened in a small, nondescript wooden building on a busy Chatsworth street. Although its humble beginning doesn't compare to the elegant complex of Hindu shrines near Malibu Canyon, the temple nevertheless has carved out a distinction in a uniquely Southern California way. The swami for the Chatsworth temple is Alice Coltrane, a black convert to Hinduism and widow of celebrated jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.

A jazz critic once wrote that the late saxophone virtuoso John Coltrane, like no jazzman before him, deliberately offered his work as a form of religious expression, raising his music from the saloons to the heavens. "In his use of jazz as prayer and meditation, Coltrane was beyond all doubt the principal spiritual force in music," wrote Edward Strickland shortly after Coltrane's 1967 death from liver disease at the age of 40.

Rashied Ali, a free-jazz drummer who backed John Coltrane and accompanied him in a ground-breaking duet album in the final months of the jazz master's life, died Wednesday in New York City. He was 76. His wife, Patricia Ali, said he died at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital of a blood clot in his lung. Ali joined Coltrane's group in the mid-1960s during the saxophonist's period of avant-garde jazz experimentation. When Coltrane decided to use two drummers in a concert at the Village Gate in November 1965, he chose Ali to back up drummer Elvin Jones.

A jazz critic once wrote that the late saxophone virtuoso John Coltrane, like no jazzman before him, deliberately offered his work as a form of religious expression, raising his music from the saloons to the heavens. "In his use of jazz as prayer and meditation, Coltrane was beyond all doubt the principal spiritual force in music," wrote Edward Strickland shortly after Coltrane's 1967 death from liver disease at the age of 40.

The first Hindu temple in the San Fernando Valley has opened in a small, nondescript wooden building on a busy Chatsworth street. Although its humble beginning doesn't compare to the elegant complex of Hindu shrines near Malibu Canyon, the temple nevertheless has carved out a distinction in a uniquely Southern California way. The swami for the Chatsworth temple is Alice Coltrane, a black convert to Hinduism and widow of celebrated jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.

The second annual John Coltrane Festival drew a somewhat sparse but enthusiastic crowd Saturday to the Wiltern Theater. Alice Coltrane, now known as Swami Turiyasangitanada, is mainly active as the spiritual teacher who runs the Vedantic Center in Agoura, where she provides students with meditation instruction. Her appearance at the Wiltern climaxed an evening devoted mainly to the music of her husband, who died in 1967.