On Friday, Aug. 30, harpist Brandee Younger will perform on the harp played by jazz harpist Alice Coltrane for the first time since its recent restoration. The performance is free to attend, and will take place Aug. 30 at 7:00 p.m. on the Carhartt Amphitheater Stage, Hart Plaza, in Detroit as part of the opening night of the Detroit Jazz Festival. Titled “Translinear Light: The Music of Alice Coltrane,” the concert is a world premiere performance featuring her son, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, joined by Younger, Reggie Workman, and the Detroit Jazz Festival Chamber Orchestra.
According to a press release from The John & Alice Coltrane Home, the concert in Alice Coltrane’s native Detroit kicks off the Year of Alice Coltrane, which commemorates her legacy. The harp will be on loan to Younger from the Coltrane Family, and special performances will feature Younger and Coltrane’s harp throughout the Year of Alice. “It is my honor to be a part of [the Year of Alice] and to pay tribute to the pianist and organist; harpist, vocalist; composer and author; Alice Coltrane, also known as Swamini Turiyasangitananda,” Younger says. “Her musical and spiritual journey helped define and shape a life and an entire musical genre. Spiritual, meditative, cathartic, exciting, transformative, transcendental, soulful and Black.”
“In 1967, John Coltrane gifted a harp to his wife Alice, which arrived at her doorstep shortly after his passing,” The Coltrane Home states. “This was Alice’s first harp—she had never played the instrument before—and the harp on which she recorded her seminal works, including Journey In Satchidananda, A Monastic Trio and countless others.”
Coltrane’s harp, a Lyon & Healy style 11, was restored at the harp manufacturer’s Chicago factory. “We were honored and privileged to participate in this project and restore the harp of the great Alice Coltrane,” Lyon & Healy says. “Alice gave us a new world of sound, colors, and possibilities with the harp and helped start this great shift in how the harp was viewed and its capabilities. This harp, which we made many decades ago, was brought back into our care and passed through the hands of our artisans and craftspeople who restored its gilding, made structural repairs, crafted a new neck, and overhauled the action to make this legend of an instrument playable once more. With all the original sound producing components intact from when Alice played on it, we, as a company, are excited to hear her harp sing again and for Brandee to breathe life into it once more. The Coltrane harp has made music that captured the heart and soul of countless [people] all over the world and we know it will now continue to make music for us and future generations.”
Read more about Younger, and Coltrane’s inspirational influence, in our cover interview with Younger in the January/February 2021 issue of Harp Column. For more information about the concert, visit the Detroit Jazz Festival website.
