Alice Coltrane

Alice Coltrane was an uncompromising pianist, composer, and bandleader who spent the majority of her life seeking spiritually in both music and her private life. Music ran in Coltrane's family; her older brother was bassist Ernie Farrow, who in the '50s and '60s played in the bands of Barry Harris, Stan Getz, Terry Gibbs, and Yusef Lateef. Alice McLeod began studying classical music at the age of seven. She attended Detroit's Cass Technical High School with pianist Hugh Lawson and drummer Earl Williams. As a young woman she played in church and was a fine bebop pianist in the...