LAX 2

I’m barely out of the car when I make a beeline through the parking lot of the Philosophical Research Society to reach the statue. On its back is written: “The Truth that is within thee is within me.” Or, as it’s etched on his front, prostrate before God, before the sun setting over the Hollywood Hills: “Thou Art That.” PRS is the place for me.

It’s one of the more fascinating places I’ve ever been to in Los Angeles. Built in 1936, every night they host another exquisite manifestation of esoteric thought. There are Tarot readings, a jaw-dropping library of rare editions and folios, and a deep bookstore.

Of course, I have no time or bandwidth to even browse, thumb, much less gaze at a book spine, as I have to focus on the proceedings at hand. Tonight, I’m in conversation with two other people integral to the story that is told in Cosmic Music: Baker Bigsby and Radha Botofasina. As many people told me over the years, Baker is the vault. He was the one responsible for engineering Alice’s Impulse albums and later for recording the ashram tapes.

For me, Baker offers perspective of the outsider who believes her, not a family member, not a devotee of the ashram. He’s someone who records his artist and gets to experience her benevolence across artistic, familial, spiritual, and business matters. Through his belief in a woman he calls “my friend,” there’s a pathway for my own connection to her some four decades later.

I won’t recount the importance of Radha here, save that she’s foundational to the book. So being able to converse with the two of them is a treat. Even better, we have a moderator for the night, Black Quantum Futurism. For those not keeping up with the codes, it’s a duo of Rasheedah Phillips and Camae Ayewa (though to clarify, I think of them as a trio, in that Cameo’s little dog Plum sits in her lap the whole evening). Of course, Ayewa has been known to me for many years as Moor Mother. So the chance to chop it up with Camae in any capacity is beyond belief. It’s going to be a deep one.

Her first question sends me on a discussion of “Black genius.” Bennie Maupin himself is a prime example of the “Black genius” undercurrent in the book, of Alice encountering folks who would go on to their own path of brilliance. Think of Bennie in Alice’s family’s living room, learning ear training as they spin Africa/ Brass again and again, Alice transcribing the motifs as they listen. He’s not the first person to tell me she has perfect pitch. That Bennie would trace this particular trajectory through jazz history is uncanny. He’s not on Bitches Brew and Head Hunters by happenstance. His time with Alice oriented him in the music, furthered his exploration of his soul through the music, so that his soul could come forth through some of the most profound music of the era.

There’s a slide I present of Alice McLeod, age 11, winning the spelling bee in Detroit. It’s the first public image of her I came across in my research and it’s a really sweet newsprint image. Then there’s a slide of Alice in the Premiers press photo, with her boyfriend at the time, George Bohanon. Bohanon is another example of that same theme of genius, Bohanon being a crucial architect of that Motown sound, arranging countless horn charts on those sides.

Michael Brook even came through!

Michael Brook

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Jul 27

I first encountered Canadian guitarist/ composer/ producer Michael Brook via his 1985 debut Hybrid, released on Brian Eno’s classic EG Records imprint. Both Eno and Daniel Lanois’s name on the cover was all the seal of approval I needed, as it sounded a bit like the dark ambience of Eno’s

Fine, a more overt of “Black genius” and Motown: Alice in the studio for a week while Stevie is recording Songs in the Key of Life. She doesn’t play a note on it, nor does she play a note on A Love Supreme, but she makes there be one degree of separation between two of the greatest musical statements of the 20th century.

Camae’s eyes widen with awe at that realization. We talk about perspectives of time, the four decades before the ashram tapes will see public release, the suspension of term during the chanting at the mandir, the fact that we are in the midst of the Kali yuga, the lowest of the four cycles of mankind. Thankfully, we only have another 400,000 years or so more to go to arrive at the next golden age.

Baker gets to the verge of tears, which gets me near the verge of tears. He offers up such praise for the book that I’m touched. As I tell the audience at one point, my role as biographer for Alice Coltrane feels a little like being the person who meets Matthew, who meet Luke, who hears these stories about their friend Jesus, but who never meets Jesus themself. And yet finds a way to believe. and believes.

The conversation with Rashida and Camae could go another hour, but then it’s time to screen an episodes of Eternity’s Pillar and sign books. My daughter makes a beeline after the talk to pet Plum, clearly starstruck by the dog that patiently sat onstage with us.