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GRAMMYs

Rudy Van Gelder

Photo: © Mosaic Images/CORBIS

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Trustees Award: Rudy Van Gelder

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Fusion star Jeff Lorber pays tribute to innovative jazz engineer
Jeff Lorber
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 4:06 pm

As a young music student at Berklee College of Music in 1970, I started to buy what was considered the classic jazz music library and started a lifelong love of music that still sounds as alive and creative today as it did when it was recorded. Later, as I started to pay more attention to the credits of these records, one credit stood out: "Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder at Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey." Obviously, Englewood Cliffs was a magical place where all kinds of amazing recording took place. Horace Silver's Song For My Father and Blowin' The Blues Away;  Sidewinder by Lee Morgan; Life Time by Tony Williams; The Prisoner and Speak Like A Child by Herbie Hancock; The Real McCoy and Tender Moments by McCoy Tyner; Joe Henderson's early records; Freddie Hubbard; Miles; and the list goes on ... and on! These are records that I loved then and I still can’t get enough of listening to.

Of course, the amazing cover artwork of the Blue Note classics helped establish that label as the gold standard of jazz, but without the inspired music and superb recording techniques of Rudy Van Gelder, no one would have noticed. I'm sure that Rudy's training as an optometrist helped him master the new technology of recording and the fine adjustments that are required by a master recording professional and mixer. He astutely chose his tools carefully as newly invented microphones and recording gear became available.

Rudy went on to record and mix an unprecedented number of jazz classics, including works by Bud Powell, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, and Thelonious Monk, among others. He even recorded most of the albums released by Creed Taylor's CTI Records, which were a bit more in the pop and R&B directions, and pointed the way to a more modern style of jazz music production.

I'm glad to report that Rudy is still busy recording. The legacy of the brilliant jazz records he helped bring to life only seems to gain importance as time goes on.

(Four-time GRAMMY nominee Jeff Lorber was a major force in jazz fusion in the '70s, '80s and beyond as a solo artist and as the architect of Jeff Lorber Fusion. Jeff Lorber Fusion's latest album, Galaxy, was released in January.)

In addition to the GRAMMY Awards, The Recording Academy presents Special Merit Awards recognizing contributions of significance to the recording field, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award and Technical GRAMMY Award. Each year, The Academy invites friends and colleagues of Special Merit Awards recipients to pay tribute to the honorees' career accomplishments, while also adding colorful anecdotes and personal accounts. In the days leading up to the 54th GRAMMY Awards, GRAMMY.com will present the tributes to the 2012 Special Merit Awards recipients.

Follow GRAMMY.com for our inside look at GRAMMY news, blogs, photos, videos, and of course nominees. Stay up to the minute with GRAMMY Live. Check out the GRAMMY legacy with GRAMMY Rewind. Explore this year's GRAMMY Fields. Or check out the collaborations at Re:Generation, presented by Hyundai Veloster. And join the conversation at Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

GRAMMYs

Bruce Lundvall

Courtesy of the Lundvall Family

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Trustees Award: Bruce Lundvall

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Herbie Hancock on 2011 Trustees Award recipient Bruce Lundvall, the heart and soul of jazz
Herbie Hancock
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 4:06 pm

In addition to the GRAMMY Awards, The Recording Academy presents Special Merit Awards recognizing contributions of significance to the recording field, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award and Technical GRAMMY Award. Each year, The Academy invites friends and colleagues of Special Merit Awards recipients to pay tribute to the honorees' career accomplishments, while also adding colorful anecdotes and personal accounts. In the days leading up to the 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards, GRAMMY.com will present the tributes to the 12 Special Merit Awards recipients for 2011.

Bruce Lundvall, a music powerhouse, is the heart and soul of jazz. His lifetime dedication and devotion to jazz, coupled with his expert ability in orchestrating all facets of Blue Note Records, have bestowed upon the world a priceless gift — some of the greatest music ever created.

His stalwart support for the master musicians who have been fortunate to work with him has been instrumental in the continuation and development of modern jazz because, to Bruce, the music and the artists are paramount.

My gratitude to Bruce is immense because he was responsible for events that became cornerstones in my life's work and passions. He has championed my music, whether he was involved in the production or was just cheering me on from the sidelines. Bruce played a crucial role in advancing my career when he brought me to Clive Davis at Columbia Records. They released Head Hunters in 1973, a pivotal recording for me, and a defining moment in jazz fusion. And, it was Bruce who suggested me to the iconic film director, Bertrand Tavernier, to create the score for the film 'Round Midnight, for which I subsequently won an Oscar.

For almost five decades Bruce has steered the music world by shepherding a plethora of jazz, pop, Latin, and country icons into successful recording careers. He can identify emerging artists destined for success, like Norah Jones, or champion a gifted musician who is worthy of respect and wider attention, exemplified by his recent signing of the gifted guitarist Lionel Loueke.

His stable of past and present artists reads like a musical history book: Willie Nelson, Natalie Cole, Dexter Gordon, James Taylor, McCoy Tyner, Paquito D'Rivera, Stan Getz, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby McFerrin, Rubén Blades, Stanley Jordan, Dianne Reeves, Joe Lovano, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Max Roach, Cassandra Wilson, Phoebe Snow, Bob James, Rosanne Cash, Toto, and Stephen Stills, to name a few. Whew!

And, I am proud and greatly honored to be a member of his extraordinary musical family.

Bruce has received numerous awards from his peers, and has been praised for his charity work and his lifetime service to world culture. Receiving the Trustees Award from The Recording Academy adds a prestigious accolade to his long list of achievements.

(Twelve-time GRAMMY recipient Herbie Hancock took home the Album Of The Year GRAMMY in 2007 for River: The Joni Letters. He won the Original Score Oscar in 1986 for 'Round Midnight. He is nominated for three GRAMMY Awards this year for his work on The Imagine Project.)

This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of The Recording Academy's National Trustees to individuals who, during their careers in music, have made contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording. The Trustees Award was established in 1967. To view a complete list of Trustees Award recipients, click here.

Lifetime Achievement Award: Julie Andrews, Roy Haynes, Juilliard String Quartet, The Kingston Trio, Dolly Parton, Ramones, George Beverly Shea
Trustees Award: Al Bell, Wilma Cozart Fine
Technical GRAMMY Award: Roger Linn, Waves Audio Ltd.

 

GRAMMYs

George Jones, Diana Ross and Glen Campbell

Photo: Mark Sullivan/WireImage.com

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A Special Affair

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THE GRAMMYs
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 3:22 pm

Glen Campbell: Lifetime Achievement Award Acceptance

Diana Ross: Lifetime Achivement Award Acceptance

George Jones: Lifetime Achievement Award Acceptance

By Paul Grein

The Recording Academy's Special Merit Awards Ceremony was especially heartfelt this year, a reflection on the mortality of several of the honorees. Glen Campbell, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2011. Three of the recipients died last year: Gil Scott-Heron, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award; Steve Jobs, who received a Trustees Award; and engineer Roger Nichols, who received a Technical GRAMMY Award.

"Hallelujah!" exclaimed Diana Ross, striking a personal note in accepting her Lifetime Achievement Award. "Lifetime Achievement?" she mused. "To me, my lifetime achievement are my children," pointing to her three daughters, two sons and first grandson, who joined her onstage.

Campbell let his wife, Kimberly, offer most of his thank yous, but he did single out the songwriter who gave him "By The Time I Get To Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston." "I probably wouldn't be here today if it weren't for Jimmy Webb," he said. Campbell was an in-demand Los Angeles session guitarist before he became a country crossover star. In 1969 he became the first country artist to win a GRAMMY for Album Of The Year.

The Lifetime Achievement Award to the Allman Brothers Band was accepted by eight past or present members of the legendary Southern rock group: Gregg Allman, Oteil Burbridge, Warren Haynes, Jaimoe, Chuck Leavell, Mark Quinones, and Butch and Derek Trucks, as well as representatives on behalf of the late Duane Allman and Berry Oakley.

Jaimoe told a funny story about how he came to join the band when he was just 16. "When I met Duane, I was on my way to New York to become a jazz musician and starve to death," he said. "But Charles Otis, who was a friend of mine, always said, 'If you wanna make some money, go play with the white boys.' So I forgot about going to become a jazz musician."

Derek Trucks noted that when the band was founded, "it took balls of steel" to have an interracial rock playing "the chitlin' circuit." Butch Trucks said simply, "Thank you, Duane, for giving me my life."

Scott-Heron was cited for his social commentary and influential role in the development of rap and hip-hop. He died last May, and his Lifetime Achievement Award was accepted by his four children. Daughter Raquiyah Kelly Heron said she thought her father "would be tickled pink" by the award. But she added, "I'm kind of glad it's not televised. He would have probably said something and gotten CBS fined."

George Jones was cited for a career that started with his first album in 1957. Jones has won two GRAMMYs, including one for the all-time country classic "He Stopped Loving Her Today." Like several of the other honorees, Jones primarily thanked his fans "for making my career successful."

The Memphis Horns (trumpeter Wayne Jackson and tenor saxophonist Andrew Love) played on countless hits on Stax Records and Hi Records in the '60s and '70s, as well as sessions for everyone from Neil Diamond to Bonnie Raitt. "It's been a dance of love between me and that trumpet," said Jackson, who singled out Jerry Wexler for his help.

Antonio Carlos Jobim spearheaded the bossa nova sound that swept the globe in the '60s. His Lifetime Achievement Award was accepted by his widow, Ana. Jobim died in 1994.

This marks the second time Jobs' work has been honored by The Academy. He was a co-founder of Apple Computer Inc., which received a Technical GRAMMY Award in 2002. His continuing contributions led to this personal acknowledgement for the visionary, who died last October. Jobs' Trustees Award was accepted by Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services, who made note of Jobs' love of music.

"Music shaped his life and made him who he was," said Cue. "When he introduced the iPod in 2001, people asked, 'Why are you doing this?' He said, 'We love music and it's always good to do something you love.'"

Dave Bartholomew is a musician, bandleader, composer and arranger, best known for his work with Fats Domino, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987. Bartholomew wasn't able to accept his Trustees Award in person, so it was accepted by his two sons.

Engineer Rudy Van Gelder has recorded thousands of jazz sessions, including classic albums for Blue Note Records by Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. His Trustees Award was accepted by pianist/composer Cecilia Coleman.

Audio engineer Nichols won six GRAMMYs for his work with Steely Dan and a seventh for his work with John Denver. He also worked a span of artists including Crosby, Stills & Nash to Cher. His Technical GRAMMY Award was accepted by his widow and two daughters.

The German-based company Celemony also received a Technical GRAMMY Award. The company specializes in the digital audio pitch-correction software known as Melodyne. Founded in 2000, the company has just 20 employees, which prompted co-founder Peter Neubacker, to say, "Our company is the smallest ever to win a Technical GRAMMY — and also the strangest." 

Alice Coltrane circa 1970

Alice Coltrane circa 1970

 

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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Alice Coltrane's 'Ptah, The El Daoud' At 50 alice-coltrane-ptah-el-daoud-50-year-anniversary

'Ptah, The El Daoud' At 50: How Alice Coltrane Straddled Heaven And Earth

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The pianist-harpist's home-recorded album, featuring Joe Henderson, Pharoah Sanders, Ron Carter and Ben Riley, is otherworldly yet drenched in the blues
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Dec 30, 2020 - 8:39 pm

Every morning, the alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin rises before the sun, settles behind her 88-key electric piano and offers wordless thanks to the Creator. "My goal is to get to it before sunrise," she tells GRAMMY.com from her New York apartment. "That's when the universe is most receptive, right before the day is about to break and everyone gets in their prayers. I'm there before everyone." 

Right then, Benjamin plays a composition that means more to her than any denominational hymn: "Turiya And Ramakrishna," the worshipful blues from pianist, harpist, and composer Alice Coltrane, off her 1970 album Ptah, The El Daoud.

Benjamin last performed "Turiya And Ramakrishna" for a paying audience back in March. That was at Dizzy's Club at Jazz At Lincoln Center during the release show for her tribute album, Pursuance: The Coltranes, on the cusp of the national COVID-19 lockdown. 

"'Turiya And Ramakrishna' puts me in a place of worship," Benjamin says of her setlist, which invariably features the tune. "I usually take that moment to get deeper into how the audience and I are feeling. I try to bring them into a place of worship to realize this song is not the same as the rest. It's not a church song, but for her style of music, it is. Whether they take it as a church song or not, I'm going to the next step." 

These days, critics are reappraising Coltrane as an artistic equal to her husband, John. But of all her albums, from her early days as a Detroit bebopper to her recordings as the spiritual director of an ashram, Journey In Satchidananda (1971)—Ptah's follow-up—gets the most ink. (It was her only album to make Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list, at No. 446.) 

But Ptah, The El Daoud, which turns 50 this year, deserves a seat at the table, too.

Ptah, which Coltrane titled in tribute to the Egyptian creator god of Memphis and patron of craftspeople and architects ("El Daoud" means "the beloved" in Arabic), contains abundant hypnotic power and emotional import. These qualities relate to the inner journey Coltrane underwent at the time, the fact she recorded Ptah at home, her quintet's performances, and the album's matrix of ancient Vedic and Egyptian references.

By all accounts, Coltrane conceived Ptah, The El Daoud, and its predecessors, A Monastic Trio (1968) and Huntington Ashram Monastery (1969), during a period of grief and spiritual evolution. In the years after her husband, John, died of liver cancer in 1967, she experienced physical, mental and metaphysical phenomena, as documented in her 1977 spiritual memoir, "Monument Eternal." 

"Sometimes, my heartbeat shifted to the right side of my body. All of the hair on my head would stand on end as if it were electrically charged," Coltrane wrote, citing the "extensive mental and physical austerities" she underwent during this time.

As evidenced by the track titles from this period, like "Lord Help Me To Be" and "IHS" (or, "I Have Suffered"), she interfaced with her traumas and pushed past them into a transcendent space. "My meaning here was to express and bring out a feeling of purification," Coltrane stated in Leonard Feather's liner notes to Ptah, The El Daoud. "Sometimes on Earth, we don't have to wait for death to go through a sort of purging, a purification."

"A lot of those tracks [on A Monastic Trio], like 'I Want to See You' and 'Gospel Trane,' I think of them as mourning because she'd suffered that loss," harpist Brandee Younger tells GRAMMY.com. "And by the time we get to Huntington Ashram Monastery, you know, that title speaks volumes. So then we have Ptah, The El Daoud: 'This is my next phase, and it's more than what you got before.'"

"You know what I think is cool about this album, but also [about] just her in general?" pianist Cat Toren asks GRAMMY.com. "She had four young kids, and she had lost the love of her life. I think that's huge. It speaks to her power as a woman, to go forth no matter the adversity of what else is going on in her life. I would be interested to know her support network and how she was able to produce this incredible work under such challenging conditions."

Vijay Iyer, a pianist, composer and Harvard professor, is careful to note that Coltrane's spiritual quest was more far-reaching than her husband's loss. "She was in public life from 1960 until [her death in] 2007, and for four of those years, she was married to John Coltrane," he says. "Yes, she was grieving, but there was something else she went through in those years that was the beginning of a much larger transformation. Not to reduce her role in the family or her relationship to [John] or anything like that, but she was on her own journey, too."

"When [John] passed, it's not just his passing; it's the combination of his passing, plus mothering, plus careering, plus the world is in unrest," Younger says. "I feel it would be impossible not to be affected by that combination of factors. In the big picture, she went through a serious transition, and there's no question about that because it's written in the book."

"I mean, think about it," she adds. "That happened in that house, where she recorded that record. How could one not affect the other?"

John and Alice Coltrane's home in Dix Hills on Long Island, New York

John and Alice Coltrane's home in Dix Hills on Long Island, New York | Photo: Steve Pfost/Newsday RM via Getty Images

As with A Monastic Trio and Huntington Ashram Monastery, Alice Coltrane recorded Ptah, The El Daoud in the basement of her ranch-style house at 247 Candlewood Path in Dix Hills on Long Island, New York, which she and John shared from 1964 until his death; she remained there until 1973. Tenor saxophonists and flutists Joe Henderson and Pharoah Sanders, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Ben Riley accompanied her on the recording.

Read: Hank Mobley's 'Soul Station' At 60: How The Tenor Saxophonist's Mellow Masterpiece Inspires Jazz Musicians In 2020

"When I hear that record, the first thing I hear is the room," saxophonist-clarinetist Jeff Lederer tells GRAMMY.com, describing the rich, boomy atmosphere of Ptah, The El Daoud as "comforting." "It's not a [Rudy] Van Gelder sound or anything, but you can feel [like], 'Wow! She was making this record in her house.' It's not the kind of sound you'd expect."

In that regard, Steve Holtje, a keyboardist, writer and the manager and producer of the long-running, Bernard Stollman-founded label, ESP-Disk', views Ptah as something of a landmark. 

"It's not the first time anybody ever did this—it's not even the first time she did it—but I have a certain fondness of placing this album in the lineage of DIY recording," he says. "It happens that Ed Michel at [jazz label] Impulse! got the producer credit on this, but I'm not sure how much a producer he was in terms of influencing the music." 

"Was she a Billie Eilish in the making?" Ashley Kahn, the author of "A Love Supreme: The Story Of John Coltrane's Signature Album" and "The House That Trane Built: The Story Of Impulse Records," asks GRAMMY.com. "The self-produced, self-sufficient musician idea has been around for many, many years and expressed in many different ways." 

"It's a Black female artist taking control of her music," Holtje states. "That's really important."

"It may be that that sensibility was in the air at that time," Iyer adds. "A sense of self-determination to make this work for you on your terms, rather than a transaction with a corporation, which doesn't necessarily have your best interests at heart. Particularly for Black artists in the 1960s and '70s, that was a movement."

"It's homey. It has that Sunday-afternoon-after-church vibe," bassist Melvin Gibbs tells GRAMMY.com of the feeling "Turiya And Ramakrishna" exudes. "Even the Van Gelder records were recorded in a living room, so it's not that far out of context in the sound of jazz, but it feels like your relatives were playing for you. That's evocative for me." 

"The room is the invisible instrument. The other member of the band is the room in which you record the live date," vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Georgia Anne Muldrow tells GRAMMY.com. 

But when it comes to record-making, a lush-sounding room doesn't mean much without stellar musicians within its walls.

"Ptah, The El Daoud has darkness and richness of tone that speaks to me, and some of that comes from the incredible sound of every musician [on the album]," keyboardist Jamie Saft tells GRAMMY.com. "The musicians on this record, their tone is as rich and developed and important as it gets. Joe Henderson and Pharoah [Sanders] have some of the greatest saxophone tones of all time. Alice Coltrane's piano tone and Ron Carter's bass tone are so important to jazz music." 

Aside from "Lord Help Me To Be" on A Monastic Trio, where Sanders tears a hole in the firmament, Ptah, The El Daoud is Coltrane's first album with horns. 

"I think what makes this album so great is that you get to hear her comp with great horn players," pianist Matthew Shipp tells GRAMMY.com. "The beautiful plant and flower that her chordal language and her touch had [relates to] the interplay of those two horn players."

Joe Henderson circa 1970

Joe Henderson circa 1970 | Photo: Tom Copi/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

The musicians featured on Ptah hail from both the avant-garde and straight-ahead jazz scenes. 

"This rapprochement between those two styles was very deliberate on [Coltrane's] part," Holtje says. "Ben Riley is best-known from Thelonious Monk's quartet. And before that, Riley had been playing with the Johnny Griffin/'Lockjaw' Davis quintet, which was very much a popular style."

Holtje goes on to note that while Carter played with Miles Davis and Henderson had come off a string of exploratory-yet-tonal albums on Blue Note, Sanders was "Albert Ayler-influenced—a real firebreather in Alice's husband's band." 

"Aside from Pharoah, Alice's band on this record looks, to me, like a deliberate move away from associations with John," he observes. "And to do that, she put together a set of musicians who were not especially associated with each other."

Read: 'Bitches Brew' At 50: Why Miles Davis' Masterpiece Remains Impactful

As for the rest of the rhythm section? 

"Ron Carter's walking on air. You can't get away from the fact that this is a blues-based, cosmic cat," Shipp enthuses. 

"Ron is maybe one of the two or three most important bass players in the history of jazz from a harmonic standpoint," drummer Gerry Gibbs adds. "Alice's music only has a few chords; usually, it doesn't have a lot of chord progression. So that gives Ron a lot of space to use a lot of his harmonic brilliance.

"Ben [Riley] was a very soft drummer," he continues. "He never really played much with a crash cymbal; he usually played with a ride and a flat cymbal. He was never a basher." 

"He's the kind of drummer I'd like to be," Muldrow adds. "The kind that supports what's going on and makes statements through the ways he supports the music. There are things he does with the brushes on that record that I'll never forget."

"There's this real attention to groove and the meaning, the importance of that," Iyer says of Riley's performance. "Even when the [music] seems to kind of wash along, there's precise attention and care for how the pulse is expressed. You hear her dealing with that in a way you don't as much as when she plays with Rashied Ali. It gives this album a certain backbone that's important."

Despite its harmonic and rhythmic dust devils, Ptah has an undeniable core and pulse.

"'Ptah, The El Daoud,' to me, sounds like a battle cry of sorts," Younger says. "The interplay between Sanders and Henderson, and the way Coltrane favors the low end of the piano for nearly the entirety of the head and horn solos, gives it this riveting edge."

"After it's all done," she continues, "'Turiya And Ramakrishna' is the perfect release. Spiritually, and she references this in so many of her composition titles and writings, she sought to express a state of nirvana. This track achieves just that. That blues, the way it just keeps going, this cyclical driving-home, and then how the bass moves underneath it to give all types of new qualities to this one scale—it's just beautiful how she did that."

"There's stasis in here, but it keeps moving. It's like a spiral," guitarist Brandon Ross says of Coltrane's pianism on "Turiya And Ramakrishna." "It's moving laterally, but not in a broad sense. It's elevating each time to the cycles in another dimensional field of its orbit."

"She's going back to the roots," Kahn says about "Blue Nile," for which Coltrane switched from piano to harp, with Sanders and Henderson picking up alto flutes. "But never mind bebop; it's a blues. It has that comfortable feel, yet the sound, textures and mysterioso, in-the-air feel is like waking up in the morning and looking out the window, the same window you're familiar with, and you see the lunar surface or the rings of Saturn. It's both comfortable and otherworldly at the same time."

"Whereas the harp can be more glissando-focused, the way she plays piano, she gives you everything. But the use of the blues is always present," vibraphonist Joel Ross tells GRAMMY.com.

"The only track where Pharoah asserts himself in the whole avant-garde sense is 'Mantra,'" Holtje adds. "That is the longest track, so that is the track where they have the most time to explore, if I can use that word. So that's kind of a natural thing to be happening there, but Pharoah also had a good grounding before he went out. I'm sure he respected Joe Henderson, and I'm sure Joe Henderson respected him."

While Muldrow characterizes Ptah as "a nice little cutaway, a rest stop," Iyer and Kahn see it more as an on-ramp. 

"There are many effective doorways to Alice Coltrane's world," Kahn says. "It's an unbelievably kaleidoscopic mixture of music that'll leave stretch marks on your ears and brain as far as what is possible. It combines so many different musical traditions on this planet in a way that feels very organic and satisfying on a bunch of different levels: culturally, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. Ptah, The El Daoud is as effective as any other doorway that I would recommend for any listener trying to get into Alice Coltrane and grasp what she's about. But it shouldn't be the last stop, either. It should be a welcome mat, and it's a very effective one."

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Ptah, The El Daoud is a tribute to God through ancient Vedic and Egyptian lenses, and the parallels between the two cosmologies run deep. 

"You're talking about ancient evidence of contemplating the universe. That's the point of relation," Muldrow says. "Ptah, that's coming from Africa, up from Ethiopia into the Nubian civilization, all the way into what we call Egypt today." 

"Bringing the Black experience to the Sanskrit thing, I feel like there's a circle that gets completed," she continues. "What dovetails everything is the history, the landscape and the people. That's what brings it all together, and she was completely aware of it. She's quite a scholar."

The album's heavily stylized, Jim Evans-painted cover features a wealth of emblematic information. 

"If you look at this album cover, it's got many different images in it," cultural scholar and essayist Menzi Maseko tells GRAMMY.com over Zoom from Zimbabwe. "What you see in the hieroglyphs are the names of God and of becoming. It says, 'The father of beginnings, the creator of the egg, the sun and the moon.' It's got the cobra at the bottom, which symbolizes cunning, superior intellectual capability and danger."

"The fact she even mentioned the word Ptah, to me, is like a whole history lesson," bassist Lonnie Plaxico tells GRAMMY.com, connecting Ptah to the ancient Egyptian vizier named after the deity. "I would tell people to go look at 'The Teachings Of Ptahhotep,' and you'll understand why she [evoked him]. I encourage people to go check out who Ptahhotep was. I think that was her intent. It's like a seed. I think she was putting the seed out there, like, 'You should know about this person.'"

Regarding the importance of Egyptian and Vedic systems to Coltrane, "I wouldn't put one over the other; it all becomes this percolating stew," Iyer notes. "There are all these different influences, from Islam to ancient, pre-Hindu Indian spiritual practices to Kemetic systems of knowledge. All of that intersected and had that transformative impact on Alice Coltrane to the point that she then took on the name Turiyasangitananda."

To Maseko, to make an album bearing Ptah's name is a sacred action. 

"It is all in devotional service to the Supreme Being," Maseko says, with a hint of awe. "She's immortalizing the name of Ptah, but every musician is involved in the creation of that work. Pharoah Sanders carried on the tradition. Joe Henderson carries on the tradition. Last year, you probably didn't know you would be doing this, but you're doing it because it's the will of Ptah. We didn't plan it. It's something inside your DNA, inside you and inside me, that has brought us to this moment. It's a miracle, bra'. It's an unfolding of the divine will."

In early November, Benjamin, clad in white and gold, emerged from the lockdown for a livestreamed gig at Jazzfest Berlin, her first since the album release show at Dizzy's. Midway through the set, she, Plaxico, pianist Zaccai Curtis and drummer Darrell Green changed gears and took the socially distanced crowd to church.

"That last song we played was an Alice Coltrane song entitled 'Turiya And Ramakrishna,'" she said on the mic. "Most people tell me it sounds like a love song. It's a constant seeking out the Creator, your purpose, and why you are here and getting closer to the source of the one that gave you life. It is a love song, but it's a love song to the universe."

While that "love song to the universe" may be under-discussed among casual jazz fans, its inspiration ripples forth via these musicians' hearts, minds and hands. To the question of why a jazz layperson should hear Ptah, The El Daoud, Muldrow takes what feels like half a minute for silent contemplation. 

"Because it will make you feel better," she finally allows. "You're going to hear something special in this record. You're going to feel love in this record. If I were to give this to a layperson, I'd say, 'Man, you're going to feel better after you listen to this.'"

"If you're not versed in Alice Coltrane, why do you need to hear it?" Younger asks. "Because 'Turiya And Ramakrishna' will save your life. If it doesn't save your life, it'll change your life." 

Brandon Ross sounds captivated, serene, even a little solemn while reflecting on the same track. "What else can I say about this, man?" he asks as it burbles in the background. "It's self-explanatory. They need to play this when I die, as a lift."

'Giant Steps' At 60: Why John Coltrane's Classic Hard Bop Album Is More Than A Jazz-School Worksheet

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Who will perform at the 56th GRAMMY Pre-Telecast? full-list-56th-grammy-pre-telecast-performers-presenters

Full list of 56th GRAMMY Pre-Telecast performers, presenters

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View a complete list of performers and presenters scheduled to participate in the Pre-Telecast Ceremony, plus information on how you can tune in online
Tim McPhate
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

You know that the 56th GRAMMY Awards telecast is set to air Sunday starting at 8 p.m. ET/PT. But did you know that the first GRAMMY Awards of the day in approximately 70 categories will be handed out at the 56th Annual GRAMMY Awards Pre-Telecast Ceremony at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live? Don't have a ticket to the Pre-Telecast? No problem, you can watch the entire ceremony at GRAMMY.com/live starting at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT.

Attended by nominees and industry VIPs, the star-studded ceremony will be hosted by current nominee Cyndi Lauper and feature a variety of presenters and performances by current nominees you won't want to miss.

Now that you have the date and time in your calendar, and GRAMMY.com/live bookmarked, below is our handy checklist of who will be participating in the GRAMMY Pre-Telecast, plus a taste of some of the awards that will be handed out.

Performers:

  • Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite
  • Hiatus Kaiyote
  • La Santa Cecilia
  • Roomful Of Teeth
  • Summer Horns (Dave Koz, Mindi Abair, Gerald Albright, and Richard Elliot) with the Larry Batiste Orchestra and special guest Verdine White

Presenters:

  • Roberto Fonseca
  • Jimmy Jam
  • Sarah Jarosz
  • Jeff Lorber
  • Tig Notaro
  • Tye Tribbett
  • Diane Warren

Awards to be presented include:

  • Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical
  • Best Metal Performance
  • Best Country Song
  • Best Rap Performance
  • Best Music Video
  • Best Blues Album
  • Best Jazz Vocal Album
  • Best Comedy Album
  • Best Choral Performance
  • Best Folk Album

The live stream of the Pre-Telecast will remain on GRAMMY.com as video on demand for 30 days following the event. Following the ceremony, the 56th Annual GRAMMY Awards will be broadcast live on the CBS Television Network from 8–11:30 p.m. ET/PT. For GRAMMY coverage, updates and breaking news, visit The Recording Academy's social networks on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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