Edited with text by Erin Christovale. Foreword by Ann Philbin. Text by Franya J. Berkman. Interviews by Ashley Kahn, Erin Christovale.
Rashid Johnson, Cauleen Smith and others pay tribute to a truly extraordinary figure in 20th-century American jazz
This volume unpacks the cultural legacy of musician, spiritual leader, wife and mother Alice Coltrane. Accompanying the eponymous exhibition at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum, the book takes its title from Coltrane’s 1977 autobiography and devotional text, Monument Eternal, in which she reflected on her newfound spiritual beliefs and the path to healing and self-discovery. Coltrane was "ahead of her time," as her son, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, says: she was "one of the first people to move outside the mainstream, and certainly one of the first female, Black, American jazz musicians to record her own music in her own studio, and to release music on her own terms." Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal explores themes including spiritual transcendence, sonic innovation and architectural intimacy. The project juxtaposes works from 19 contemporary American artists with pieces of ephemera from Coltrane’s archive—including handwritten sheet music, unreleased audio recordings and rarely seen footage—to honor her cultural output and practice. Alice Coltrane was born in Detroit in 1937 and took up music at an early age, beginning piano lessons at seven years old. In 1967 her husband, saxophonist John Coltrane, gifted her a harp, on which she went on to record seminal albums including Journey in Satchidananda and A Monastic Trio, making her one of the very few harpists in the history of jazz. Coltrane moved to Southern California in 1972 and founded the Sai Anantam ashram. She lived and worked in Los Angeles, where she died in 2007 at age 69.
This book was published in conjunction with Hammer Museum
Featured image is reproduced from 'Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The New York Times
Siddhartha Mutter
[This exhibition] is breaking new ground by examining Alice Coltrane’s influence in a field that she did not practice herself but where her life story has resonated and her ideas have found purchase: contemporary visual art.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
Published to accompany the Hammer Museum’s highly anticipated exhibition on view through May 4, Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal is out now and going fast. Pairing Coltrane’s work and cultural legacy with works by 19 contemporary artists—including Rashid Johnson, Cauleen Smith and Jennie C. Jones, among others—this clothbound hardcover with tipped-on cover image is an exquisitely considered and produced design object as well as a must-have volume of scholarship for collectors of books on art, music, Vedic religious practices or Black cultural history. Named after Coltrane’s iconic 1977 book (written in order to “fulfill a divine command”), Monument Eternal “calls forth her important autobiography and brings together a collective of contemporary Black American artists who are influenced by her cultural impact and production,” Erin Christovale writes. She concludes, “I believe Coltrane’s legacy resonates with so many, specifically with the group of artists included in this exhibition, because her story offers a self-paved path toward liberation and pursuit of the divine. After the immeasurable grief from the loss of her husband John and son John Jr., who died in an accident at the age of seventeen, Coltrane actively took on the mourning processes, knowing that beyond grief there is transcendence. Her intimate knowledge of this process and her understanding of a higher power fostered a cultural output that still remains to be fully understood.”
Photo: Alice Coltrane, c. 1978. Courtesy of the John & Alice Coltrane Home.
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.75 x 12.75 in. / 192 pgs / 110 color / 21 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $60.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $90 GBP £51.00 ISBN: 9781636811567 PUBLISHER: DelMonico Books AVAILABLE: 2/11/2025 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by DelMonico Books. Edited with text by Erin Christovale. Foreword by Ann Philbin. Text by Franya J. Berkman. Interviews by Ashley Kahn, Erin Christovale.
Rashid Johnson, Cauleen Smith and others pay tribute to a truly extraordinary figure in 20th-century American jazz
This volume unpacks the cultural legacy of musician, spiritual leader, wife and mother Alice Coltrane. Accompanying the eponymous exhibition at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum, the book takes its title from Coltrane’s 1977 autobiography and devotional text, Monument Eternal, in which she reflected on her newfound spiritual beliefs and the path to healing and self-discovery. Coltrane was "ahead of her time," as her son, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, says: she was "one of the first people to move outside the mainstream, and certainly one of the first female, Black, American jazz musicians to record her own music in her own studio, and to release music on her own terms."
Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal explores themes including spiritual transcendence, sonic innovation and architectural intimacy. The project juxtaposes works from 19 contemporary American artists with pieces of ephemera from Coltrane’s archive—including handwritten sheet music, unreleased audio recordings and rarely seen footage—to honor her cultural output and practice.
Alice Coltrane was born in Detroit in 1937 and took up music at an early age, beginning piano lessons at seven years old. In 1967 her husband, saxophonist John Coltrane, gifted her a harp, on which she went on to record seminal albums including Journey in Satchidananda and A Monastic Trio, making her one of the very few harpists in the history of jazz. Coltrane moved to Southern California in 1972 and founded the Sai Anantam ashram. She lived and worked in Los Angeles, where she died in 2007 at age 69.
This book was published in conjunction with Hammer Museum
