Two great musicians, bound together by a thin shining thread, died within 24 hours of one another. Alice Coltrane was a peripatetic soul, a pianist and harpist who broadened the vocabulary of jazz by adding the harp's tonalities to its palette. Her work fused influences as diverse as bebop, Stravinsky, ragas, and Islamic devotional music.

Saxophonist Michael Brecker infused himself in the playing style of Alice's late husband John Coltrane, the pioneer who transformed jazz...