The death of John Coltrane brought profound psychological and spiritual crisis to his wife and musical confederate, Alice. But from it came her adoption of the harp, followed by music of transcendent beauty. In this extract from his magisterial new ALICE COLTRANE biography, ANDY BETA reveals how she stepped into the light: "The piano is the sunrise and the harp is the sunset..."

In “a junkyard of surrealistic mayhem”: Adele Bertei ...

In 1966, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO brought together the worlds of avant-garde art, European cool and downtown rock’n’roll in one explosive package. Sixty years on, the survivors share tales of drugs, breakdowns, burnouts, blocked toilets and hospital beds – and, of course, the creation of some of the most important music ever made. “We only did things our way,” learns Tom Pinnock . “We were arrogant, perhaps, in thinking we knew best. We were also right. We did know best…”

Thirty years after its release, Billy Corgan looks back at the making of The Smashing Pumpkins ’ era-defining big, bold, bombastic masterpiece Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness .

Praise be! Prog’s most devout figure, Neal Morse, gets the gang back together, dials back the sermonising and reaches for the stars on his band’s sparkling first album in five years.

Works by Bowie, Crumb, Brahms, Mahler, Wolf, Schubert, Clarke et al Olivia Vermeulen (mezzo), Jan Philip Schulze (piano/synthesizer), Bernd Oezsevim (percussion) Challenge Classics CC720038 67 mins Th