Chords for 'This is just the beginning': Michelle Coltrane on her mother Alice (interview @Le Guess Who?)

_ [C] _ _ _ [C#m] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [C#] _
_ [F#] _ [G] Today we are featuring the inspirational and devotional music [D#] of Alice Coltrane, Turiya
Sankirtananda.
[N] We have a small chorus of people.
_ _ It's different in Los Angeles where the ashram
was, where Alice was the spiritual leader for more than 30 years, where [Em] there were 30
or 40 [G] members of a regular Sunday service [A] choir.
This is a scaled down [G#] version of it
and we'll be presenting the music [G] from recordings that Alice made in the late 80s and early
90s that were unreleased [Gm] music. _ _
_ _ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ [F#m] _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [C] They did such great [F#] efforts to kind of authenticate the [D#] scenery at the ashram and the feeling
[G] of it.
All the concerts have been on Sundays.
Some have started in the afternoon where the
light was coming through the window.
The yellow pillows, the blue carpet is exactly the way
the month here looked.
_ _ [N] We attended as children.
_ Myself and my three brothers when we were
younger.
So it was just our normal everyday life.
I like I said, you know, I have a double,
I got it doubly.
I had a mother and a spiritual [Dm] leader as well. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G#m] This culture was a spiritual teacher as well as [F] a great musician.
And [N] I was a member of
her spiritual community.
I was 21.
I went [F#] to a concert she was performing at because
I had heard one of her albums called Universal Consciousness.
And I just felt I said, wow,
that music is so uplifting.
This person is in tune, is in touch with something higher
and something I was looking for.
It was a turbulent time.
So I went [N] to go here and I was
fortunate enough to go speak with her after and there was such a sense of peace and clarity.
[G]
And
that's [F#] how we connected.
[G] And I found out that she was also a teacher of meditation, [G#] teacher of yoga,
and I became one of her students.
_ _ _ [A#m] _ _
_ [Fm] _ _ [D#] The ashram was a spiritual community [F#] and the music and the
chanting was an integral part of everything we did.
Swamini would say that everything is
vibrating.
[G] Our cells are vibrating, the atoms are vibrating, that sound vibration [E] actually
creates form.
Sound creates form.
[F#] So as we're trying to transform ourselves and evolve our
consciousness, the singing, the chanting is a real aid in that.
[G#] And then every now and then,
[F] Swamini would go into the studio and she would take all her technical skills and she would
merge the two.
[F#] She would have students come and lay down [Em] some tracks and then she'd play on top
[N] of that.
She would create these wonderful, [F] wonderful offerings.
[B] We'll give as much love
as we [G#] can and we [N] think that the audience will respond to that and they will give love back.
And
it's that sharing, that interconnection of energy that we get to awaken places within each other. _
_ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Dm] _ _ [F] _ I grew up on the ashram in California.
So [G] when we first moved there in [F] about 1983, I was a little
boy and [D] _ _ [F#] was there up until my 20s.
[Gm] And during the time that I was [Em] there, I started studying piano
[Em] with, you know, teachers in the neighborhood [F] and some of my mom's friends were musicians.
[F#] But every
Sunday I would come back to [E] listen to Swamini, as we [F] called her play, [E] in the Mandir.
And [Dm] that's
where [F] the education truly seemed to begin, just by listening, [Em] just by [F#] being there.
So _ from [G] there up
until the time she [F] passed, I tried to [F#] talk to her as much as I could about music. _
Anything, any _ piece
of information and knowledge she could give me, I was more than happy [Fm] to receive it.
_ _ [A#] _ _ _
_ [Fm] _ _ _ [A#] _ _ The [G] hardest
part is to try to [F#] take a person who's so larger [F] than life and condense [E] it into an hour.
[F] And then
not only a person who's larger than life, in a sense, but also is one of the most skilled musicians
[C] the world has ever seen.
I [G] knew about John Coltrane after I knew about her.
So there's a lot of people
that have that [F#] experience.
But [E] like you said, you know, they listen to [G#] Giant Steps or Love Supreme
and, [F] or Miles Davis records, and then they [F#] finally get to the part where [Em] she joined his band.
That was
never [G#] my experience.
I didn't even know John [E] Coltrane was as big as he is until [F] I was about [E] 12, 13 years old.
I know [D#] that she did most of the interviews.
[A] I remember when I was a kid, they'd ask her [Em] a few
questions, and then they'd switch [Cm] over to asking questions about John.
What was he like?
And how [G] did
he practice?
And what were his _ patterns of behavior?
[G#] And she was so kind and humble about it, [A] you know,
was never like, well, this is what I'm doing.
And just so [G] gracious and humble.
I think this is just,
this is a _ beginning.
[F#] _ _ We're here to tell the story [G] of what we saw, and some of the people in the
choir that are here, [Cm] including Poor Shatema, who you said you just spoke to.
[N] We were, we got a chance
to tell the story, tell the history of, but I just think it is the beginning.
It's just so,
something very powerful about it.
And because I saw John's legacy [G#m] live on and be so much stronger
[A] after his, you know, ascent _ to heaven.
_ This is, it's [E] very, it's very eerily familiar to see.
Wow.
It's just getting, you know, more and more exposure.
So, [D#] yes, that's what I think.
_ _ [B] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [N] _ _ _ _
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