Ravi Coltrane Honors His Musical and Personal Heritage

The saxophonist Ravi Coltrane began the tribute concert he had organized to his late mother, the pianist Alice Coltrane, on Tuesday night, with a touching testimonial describing her lifelong quest for an all-encompassing belief system that included everything important to her, be it on a musical, personal, or spiritual level. He touched on her upbringing in Detroit, her study of both classical piano and bebop (with Bud Powell in Paris), her work with the vibraphone giant Terry Gibbs, her musical and spiritual partnership with her husband, John Coltrane, her later conversion to Hinduism (which spawned a series of albums fusing American jazz with Indian traditions), her long retreat into religious devotion, and her eventual "comeback" to the jazz world shortly before her death in January 2007.

Roughly half of Tuesday's concert at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, which served as an opening event at this year's JVC Jazz Festival, consisted of music from Alice Coltrane's final album, 2004's "Translinear Light," including the title track, "Jagadishwar," and "Blue Nile." As a composer-bandleader, Coltrane (who was born Alice McLeod in 1937) covered a wide range of musical ground on such albums as "Huntington Ashram Monastery," which is essentially fundamental, bluesy jazz despite the Hindi titles, and 1971's "Universal Consciousness," which featured symphonic orchestration by Ornette Coleman. Some of her music was almost a kind of free-jazz kitsch with heavily religious overtones, but all of it was sincere and unique.

The greatest favor that Mr. Coltrane could do for his mother's music was to narrow its focus. He concentrated on a single ensemble built around his tenor saxophone and the rhythm section, which included the veteran bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Jack DeJohnette (both of whom, along with Mr. Coltrane, played on "Translinear Light"). On Tuesday, they played alongside two contemporary female musicians recruited to fill Coltrane's sandals — the pianist Geri Allen (on vario-us electronic keyboards) and harpist Brandee Younger. The Indian music specialist Ed Feldman added Eastern rhythm on tabla and tanpura.

For the most part, it was a cohesive mix, as on "Journey in Satchidinanda," which was named for the composer's personal swami. Still, Coltrane's music remains supremely eclectic, employing a foundation of John Coltrane-style modal jazz, wherein the distinction between major and minor, and, rhythmically, between 3/4 and 4/4 time, is deliberately ambiguous, and abetted by harp and sitar. Some of the music seemed completely free-form, and some was obviously very tightly arranged, including pieces on which Ms. Allen emulated a string section with a synthesizer keyboard. Particularly impressive was "For Turiya" (which refers to Ms. Coltrane's Hindu name, Turiyasangitananda), a 1976 composition by Mr. Haden originally written as a duet for harp and bass. Tuesday's version provided the most notable feature for both Ms. Younger and Mr. Haden, who took an eloquent extended bass solo, accompanied primarily by Mr. DeJohnette's mallets.

One surprising highlight was a 10-minute mini-documentary video covering Coltrane's life, the highlight of which was a brief clip of the 21-year-old pianist performing in Paris with jazz legends Lucky Thompson and Kenny Clarke.

This was the JVC Fest's first show in the Concert Hall at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and the saxophone sound was somewhat buried at times. In general, though, the synagogue-like nature of the room suited the spiritual qualities of Coltrane's compositions, which are about as close as acoustic jazz ever gets to 1960s psychedelia. Then there was the matter of the piano: a 9-foot concert Steinway encased in bright red enamel. Or was it? Between that and Ms. Younger's luminous yellow harp, I was convinced that some prankster had somehow slipped acid into my M&Ms.

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Alice Coltrane never appeared at producer Jack Kleinsinger's Highlights in Jazz series, which began in 1973, although McCoy Tyner, her predecessor in the John Coltrane Quartet, gave several memorable recitals under the impresario's auspices. On Wednesday night, the JVC Jazz Festival celebrated the 35th anniversary of what decades ago was officially anointed as the longest-running jazz concert series in New York.

I began going to Highlights in Jazz during its first decade, primarily as a way of experiencing Zoot Sims and Doc Cheatham, who were living legends at the time. It was an added bonus to hear the younger, emerging stars who specialized in the classic styles. Many of those players have gone on to become jazz veterans, and some performed at Highlights on Wednesday night, including the drummer Danny Gottlieb, pianist Ted Rosenthal, and all three front liners, namely the trumpeter Byron Stripling, trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, and clarinetist and tenor saxophonist Ken Peplowski, all of whom are in their 40s.

The rest of the ensemble consisted of practiced hands mostly in their 70s and 80s who, in some cases, went back to the very beginning with Mr. Kleinsinger, such as the guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli and Gene Bertoncini, bassist Jay Leonhart (the bandleader and spokesman for much of the evening), and special guest pianist Billy Taylor (on the red Steinway).

The first half of the performance featured the full sextet, three horns and three rhythm playing together, as on their opener, "Lester Leaps In." Then the six musicians broke into various forms and combinations, one of which was the well-known Leonhart-Gordon duo (though here it was a quartet with piano and drums). Mr. Leonhart's tricky lyrics to Eddie Harris's "Freedom Jazz Dance" was the most modern piece of the evening, blurring the boundaries between instrumental and vocal expression, with Mr. Leonhart scatting and plucking his bass in unison while Mr. Gordon produced highly vocalized sounds from his muted trombone. Led by Mr. Stripling, the sextet also essayed the traditional "St. James Infirmary Blues," with an exaggerated vocal by the trumpeter, as well as a rousing "Indiana."

The second half consisted of more subtle but no less exciting playing, principally from the guitar duo of Messrs. Pizzarelli and Bertoncini. I've heard Mr. Pizzarelli play some of these duet arrangements before (such as "In a Mellotone") with his son, John Pizzarelli, but with Mr. Bertoncini, the guitarist assumed a whole new character, less driving rhythmically but more intricate harmonically. The most satisfying selection was a collage of John Lewis's "Django," into Django Reinhardt's own "Nuages." After the guitars, the sextet played a chamber work by Mr. Gordon, a movement from an extended suite dedicated to his home state of Georgia, and the whole company wound up with a cheerful "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)."

While Messrs. Taylor and Leonhart offered concise testimonials to Mr. Kleinsinger, the evening did not become bogged down in sentiment. Perhaps to prevent that from happening, the producer quoted a line I remember hearing the late Al Cohn say when Highlights in Jazz honored him 20 years ago: "I haven't received so much adulation since my bar mitzvah."

wfriedwald@nysun.com

Correction from June 25, 2008: Tanpura and tabla are the instruments Indian music specialist Ed Feldman played at a concert at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. One of the instruments was misidentified in an article on page 11 of the June 20-22 Sun.