Revisiting Alice Coltrane’s Translinear Light

Last year, we welcomed The Sai Anantam Singers to Big Ears to deliver the ecstatic devotional music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda. This year, we welcome one of her children, Ravi, who performs in a trio with bassist Matt Garrison and legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette. It feels like a good time, then, to revisit Translinear Light, Coltrane’s spectacular and surreal comeback album from 2004, with Ravi and brother Oran on saxophones and DeJohnette himself on the drums. Sometimes playful, sometimes pensive and still, always in the thrall of some greater idea, Translinear Light is a beautiful record, with imaginative arrangements of standards (see the boisterous take on “This Train”) and several transcendental wonders (“The Hymn,” in particular). If you’ve never heard it, give it a listen.