Alice Coltrane

An account of the life of the brilliant jazz musician John Coltrane (1926-67), a gifted saxophonist, an extraordinarily talented thinker whose original, avant-garde work has impacted and influenced people all over the world. A story about music's ability to entertain, inspire and transform.

Director Jenn Nkiru authors a personal and powerful exploration of blackness through piecing together dreamlike portraits with stunning archival footage that includes Afrofuturism pioneer Sun Ra and revolutionary organization the Black Panther Party.

In this intimate portrait—produced for a segment of National Education Television's "Black Journal" television program—legendary jazz musician Alice Coltrane plays the harp and discusses her thoughts on music, spirituality, family, and the legacy of her late husband, John Coltrane.

Throughout the mid-1980s, viewers tuning in late at night to Los Angeles’s KTTV Channel 11 could catch a broadcast unlike any other: ETERNITY’S PILLAR, a journey through the astral plane created and hosted by jazz visionary and spiritual guru Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda. Blending music, meditation, chanting, and an avant-garde video-art aesthetic, this singular audiovisual experience—four episodes of which are presented here—is a sublimely cosmic expression of Coltrane’s deep-held belief in music’s capacity to attain spiritual transcendence.

Throughout the mid-1980s, viewers tuning in late at night to Los Angeles’s KTTV Channel 11 could catch a broadcast unlike any other: ETERNITY’S PILLAR, a journey through the astral plane created and hosted by jazz visionary and spiritual guru Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda. Blending music, meditation, chanting, and an avant-garde video-art aesthetic, this singular audiovisual experience—four episodes of which are presented here—is a sublimely cosmic expression of Coltrane’s deep-held belief in music’s capacity to attain spiritual transcendence.