The Brooklyn Rail

The concert started so quietly, almost like a whisper, with an equal regard for sound and silence. The darkened pews of the First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn Heights gradually became immersed in these sound waves, which were generated at first only by an acoustic bass and the voice of the central performer, who goes by the name of ganavya. A meditative atmosphere filled the space as the other instruments slowly made themselves felt. The woman at the center of this sound welcomed guest performers throughout the concert, many of them older exponents of the styles in which she was raised, underscoring the crucial importance of continuity and loving respect found in her work. The humid autumn air was gradually suffused with an aura of holiness.

As a performer, ganavya is remarkably inward and self-effacing. She seeks to involve the audience in her sonic journey, eliciting humming ringing tones and repeated selected lyrics. Yet it is her voice—unmistakable, indelible—that is the binding force of her art. That voice is incredibly rich and supple, and we follow it with a kind of awe. But her approach is no mere exercise in virtuosity. The discipline of ganavya’s technique is always at the service of seeking an inner truth.

Though she sings mostly in Tamil, along with English, much of the meaning is conveyed through the shape and density of the sound and expresses something larger. As the spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy described it:

Music is the inner or universal language of God. I do not know French or German or Italian. But if music is played, immediately the heart of the music enters into my heart, or my heart enters into the music. At that time, we do not need outer communication; the inner communion of the heart is enough.

Born in Queens, ganavya was raised in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. She is a proponent of the Hindu tradition of Harikatha, which incorporates both singing and storytelling. Her style is described as combining spiritual jazz with South Asian devotional music. A sense of great strength supports ganavya’s voice, but of equal importance is her commitment to vulnerability. She seems to perform on the verge of tears, as some of the great fado singers of the Portuguese tradition do, with access both to beauty and grief. The effect is a kind of waking dream or trance, in which emotion is regularly heightened before resolving in the measured rhythms of breath. Prana, the life force, the original clean energy, becomes animated through her music.

On a recent recording, Daughter of a Temple, released on the German record label, Leiter, ganavya joins with some of the strongest improvising musicians working today, including Vijay Iyer, Esperanza Spalding, and Immanuel Wilkins. Much of the material on it traces back to John and Alice Coltrane, from his epochal A Love Supreme to the brilliant explorations of her Journey in Satchidananda. These are heady sources, and she illuminates their influence by focusing on their otherworldly intentions, their drive both to encompass and escape earthly bonds.

Another figure who comes most directly from this tradition is the saxophonist Ravi Coltrane. As the son of John and Alice, he has always found a way to incorporate key elements of both of their work into his own. And like ganavya, he displays remarkable humility as a musician. It is evident in the way he comes across, his seeming shyness, but also in the way he continues his parents’ astonishing musical legacy. As the headliner for the first NoMad Jazz Festival in August, he devoted his set to his mother, and to her final recording, Translinear Light, which he produced. The album came after a twenty-six year hiatus for Alice Coltrane, and only at the persistent urging of Ravi, who felt it would be their only chance to record together. It proved to be a fitting conclusion to her body of work, which has only grown more influential over time.

The festival performance took place on a new stage in Madison Square Park, set at its southwest corner. This brought a different dimension to the concert; whereas older programs there were located on the green in the center of the park, the new placement seemed to merge with the building landscape behind it, drawing directly from the energy of the city. With Brandee Younger performing on the restored harp that Alice Coltrane once played, Ravi rolled out the sheets of sound that earned his father acclaim, but in his own very distinctive style, balancing the properties of his parents’ playing with a contemporary ease and elegance all his own.

Coltrane carries forward a legacy that is unmatched in jazz, while acknowledging both the blessing and the limits of his lineage. It reminds me of something I read about the roots musician Amy Helm, daughter of the great Levon Helm of The Band. She has worked in the same vein as her father did, recorded with him on his final album, and clearly revered him. But she also said that she could sing her whole life and never produce one note that perfectly summoned her father, for the simple reason that she is not that person. It takes a special kind of respect and courage to follow directly in a famous parent’s path, and Ravi Coltrane is an inspiring embodiment of how to walk that path with distinction.

Both ganavya and Coltrane are fortunate to be pursuing music with a serious spiritual dimension at a time of renewed interest in this work. Though John and Alice Coltrane blazed this trail, the period that followed their emergence and development saw a diminished public awareness of these pursuits, the efforts of musicians like Pharoah Sanders and Azar Lawrence notwithstanding. Only in recent years, through younger artists like Kamasi Washington and Shabaka Hutchings, has music with a pronounced focus on the inner life found broader acceptance.

The appeal of this music (I hesitate to call it “spiritual” jazz—isn’t all good jazz spiritual?) may have something to do with our collective hunger for an art of truth, one that engages in a sustained quest for meaning. Certainly our national political life betrays no sign of this impulse. So many of our hopes for this country seem in jeopardy, victims of the unimaginable chaos and venality that has been unleashed. It’s understandable to want to go inward just to get away from the noise.

But at its best, music that penetrates the soul is much more than a distraction. It is a source of nourishment, and as such it provides strength to face our battles, large and small. It also reminds us of the parting words from ganavya, to which the audience added their communal voices: “There is so much beauty and comfort in being in love and just being.” These words were written by Marcellus Williams, a death row prisoner in Missouri, a Black man proclaiming his innocence, just before being executed last year. Heard in this light, the spiritual is not an escape from the world, but a profound engagement with it. “All I have is a voice / To undo the folded lie,” wrote W.H. Auden in his great poem “September 1, 1939.” To lift up that voice and sing with it remains a sacred obligation and privilege.