You Oughta Know: Alice Coltrane

It’s Black History Month, and if you’ve been checking out Rhino.com since February began, then you know that we’re making a concerted effort to utilize a number of our regular features as opportunities to spotlight black artists. Today, we decided that you oughta know Alice Coltrane, because while many people might reasonably presume from her last name that she has a connection to John Coltrane – and she does: she was his wife – not nearly as many people know that she was a recording artist in her own right.

We’ve put together a playlist featuring four albums from Alice’s stint on Warner Brothers – three studio albums and one live album – to give you a feel for who she was as an artist. It would not be fair to say that these albums are 100% representative of her overall sound, however, because Coltrane was definitely all over the place with the type of music she performed, which is certainly not a bad thing. It does, however, give you an idea of how she was evolving away from the jazz that had influenced her early career and was starting to embrace the more spiritual side of music. 

Give these albums a spin. They may well expand your mind, but no matter what, you’ll definitely be walking away with a major musical edition.