The Detroit Jazz Festival opens this year with a special performance in commemoration of the late jazz artist Alice Coltrane. Coltrane’s harp has been restored and brought back to Detroit, her birthplace.
Grammy Award-nominated harpist Brandee Younger will play the refurbished instrument opening night of the jazz festival. She will perform on the Carhartt stage in Detroit’s Hart Plaza on Aug. 30 at 7 p.m. alongside Alice’s son, Ravi Coltrane on saxophone, Reggie Workman on double bass, and the Detroit Jazz Festival Chamber Orchestra. The performance is called “Translinear Light: The Music of Alice Coltrane,” honoring her life and legacy.
The Lyon and Healy harp was originally delivered to Coltrane in 1968. Coltrane, primarily a pianist, embraced learning the instrument, continuing the musical and spiritual vision she shared with her husband John Coltrane. He was an acclaimed jazz saxophonist and composer who died in 1967 at the age of 40.
Alice Coltrane would go on to record her first of multiple solo albums “A Monastic Trio,” which was released in 1968. After she released “Transfiguration” in 1978, Coltrane took a hiatus from recording commercially. Her last album “Translinear Light” was released in 2004. Coltrane died in 2007.
One Detroit contributor Cecelia Sharpe of 90.9 WRCJ spoke with Younger about Alice Coltrane’s legacy, the restored harp and her upcoming jazz festival performance. The segment was produced by One Detroit’s Zosette Guir.
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