Ravi Coltrane: CalArts Charlie Haden Artist In Residence
Ravi at REDCAT April 2025
Lisa and I attended Ravi Coltrane’s performance at the Downtown L.A. REDCAT Theater on Friday 18 April 2025. It was the capstone of Ravi’s tenure as the Charlie Haden Artist in Residence at California Institute of the Arts’ The Herb Alpert School of Music. Charlie co-founded the CalArts Jazz Program in the early 1980s. After Charlie’s death, CalArts started a scholarship in his name. This year’s Charlie Haden graduate is a promising and talented young bassist named Adam Hernandez. My sisters and I watched Adam’s thesis recital a few days earlier on the CalArts campus.
The Friday night REDCAT concert featured saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, guitarist Adam Rogers, bassist (and former Charlie CalArts student) Scott Colley, and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts. It was an amazing show. CalArts President Ravi Rajan & Jazz Program co-founder David Roitstein spoke about Charlie’s importance in the history of CalArts. Ravi Coltrane and band played an elongated version of Ornette Coleman’s “Happy House”. They played Charlie’s tune “For Turiya” (written for Ravi’s mother, Alice Coltrane) that wove itself in, around, and between universal musical keys.
It’s a great honor to be part of the legacy my father helped create at CalArts. More info can be found here. Solid, Jackson.
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