Alice Coltrane - S/D

I like Pharoah Sanders playing here, especially on the title track. More restrained than usual, which I think is a plus, but not less expressive for it.

(This is the only AC album I've heard all the way through.)

and what's the one where it's just her on organ and her son on drums for all of side 2? That one RULES

julio, have you heard any of her other albums since that one?

(except for me it's bed time right now)

maybe turning into a ''babbling pseudo-mystico-airhead'' wasn't such a bad thing from what jason is saying above.

dada is correct- the 4 extra tracks are good and pharoah makes a mark, to say the least (apart from the flute solo was inaudible but the liner notes say that). one of the extra tracks is a piano solo from alice and that is a fitting end.

bcz of this thread i got also got 'Ptah...' and 'journey...', which i plan to listen to tonight.

I don't know what a wammy bar is, but I think I know exactly what you are talking about, since I'm listening to Transfiguration (which I just bought). My favorite thing, I'm afraid, is simply the sound of the electric organ. Her playing seems too noodly for me a lot of the time. I kind of like this bass solo. (I seem to suddenly be receptive to bass solos lately. Very peculiar.)

is journey more like pharoah sanders' karma? i know hes on it... what is a good comparison-point album?

yes

sorry but i don't think JtS is at all like karma!! karma builds to an enormous energy music freakout. there's no crescendo on JtS. it's much calmer and prettier and less "out" than either karma or universal consciousness. it's really similar to ptah the el daoud, actually, very eastern and exotic and slow and blissful.

my favorite alice coltrane albs are "world galaxy" (for reasons jason pointed out above) and definitely "the elements", which is actually a joe henderson + alice coltrane album.

"Journey" is easier on the ear definitely. I love both albums.

The Sepia Tone reissues of the Warner albums are cheap and easy to find, though I'd only recommend ETERNITY (the latin psych trip of "Los Caballos" erases all notions of wooly new ageisms) and the live trio date, TRANSFIGURATION. I still consider Alice to be the only other who could match Larry Young's godliness on the organ.

Vahid, i ended up picking up that Joe Henderson record and it sounded great, but i think i've just not been in a jazz mood lately and only listened to it twice :(

The first half is okay...the syndrums aren't very noticeable, it's just sounds like tabla and those lower pitch-bendy Indian drums whose name I don't know. She does play some questionable synthesizer on a few songs, but the cool Wurlitzer playing on other songs makes up for it.

The second half picks up a lot. 'Leo' is like Interstellar Space except with Alice, Ravi, and deJohnette, sleigh bells and all. Crescent is really nice too, as are the two duets (Alice with Charlie Haden, whom I always love hearing, and Alice on organ with an Indian choir).

And, concurrent with its release, Huntington Ashram Monastery and Lord of Lords are both out on CD (in Japan, that is)

The only thing I don't get is the need to end with a track of Sai bhajan chanting. I'd visit my parents' friends on weekends if I wanted to hear that. But, whatever, I guess it has meaning for her.

impulse should try to get the rights to her entire back catalogue (or cut in the other labels a little)and put out a complete alice box. that would be a great release.

I personally *prefer* her more mystical, string-laden music. I think it's absolutely beautiful and unique. In fact, the only song I really like on Transcendence is "Prema"---and it's mostly due to the beautiful string arrangement.

"Lord of Lords" also has some great pieces, like her rendition of Stravinsky's "Firebird," and the beautiful, joyous "Going Home."

I'd be fine with a digital master or copy frankly, just get it out there

I bought a non-boot copy of Ptah on a CD issued by Impulse this year.

Yeah, Ptah is not hard to come by. Amazon has it in stock right now.

well, I meant on vinyl since I stopped buying CDs. I have it digitally and have forever.

Ironic username / post from leading manufacturer of DACs.

https://www.akm.com/us/en/products/audio/audio-dac/

My latest Stereogum column is up. Here's what I had to say about this new/old Alice album:

In the late ’80s, the LA-based publisher Amok Books put out the Amok Assault Video, a compilation of racist old cartoons, news stories about cattle mutilations, footage of an animal control officer being attacked by a dog, R. Budd Dwyer’s suicide on live TV, a guy talking about the occult messaging behind She-Ra, and a lot more. It began with a segment from Eternity’s Pillar, Alice Coltrane’s public access cable TV show which she filmed at her California ashram. She wasn’t doing anything particularly bizarre; she was just discussing her beliefs and offering a metaphysical lecture to the viewer. But that was how Coltrane’s mystical/spiritual side was seen for years, by those who were aware of it at all: as a kind of weird joke for hip underground types to smirk at. These days, of course, her reputation has been thoroughly rehabilitated. Almost her entire catalog is back in print in one form or another, including the devotional music she recorded in the ’80s and ’90s and sold at the ashram and through a few New Age bookstores. Tracks from three of those releases (1987’s Divine Songs, 1990’s Infinite Chants, and 1995’s Glorious Chants) were reissued on a Luaka Bop compilation in 2017. But her first devotional release, 1982’s Turiya Sings, has always been the hardest to find. It was only ever available on cassette, except for a bootleg German CD. Which is too bad, because it’s a great record. Her synth and Wurlitzer organ are combined with harp and strings, and she sings in Sanskrit, but with a gospel-ish flavor. Now, Turiya Sings has been reissued… sort of. Coltrane’s son Ravi has found tapes of the basic tracks, before the strings and synthesizers were added, and released it. It’s nice; it has an intimate feel, like you’re in her house and she’s playing these songs just for you. Her voice is soft and maternal, and the organ swells all around. But this isn’t the finished product. After John Coltrane died, Alice released Infinity, an album on which she took recordings by his quartet and filled out the arrangements with strings, new keyboard solos, and in some cases overdubbed bass, replacing Jimmy Garrison with Charlie Haden. A lot of people bitched about the strings, but Coltrane herself responded, “‘Were you there? Did you hear [John’s] commentary and what he had to say?’ … We had a conversation about every detail; [John] was showing me how the piece could include other sounds, blends, tonalities and resonances such as strings.” Similarly, the strings and synths were key to Turiya Sings’ power, sending the music into wild otherworldly realms, and bringing it back down to earth this way feels a little like an attempt to sand down Alice Coltrane’s edges, so she can be “appreciated” instead of respected for what she was: a sonic visionary who made music in service of the divine.

Amen. You hit the nail on the head unperson.

Wow, good stuff.

Beautifully put. But as a person unused to dealing with music of AC’s calibre, I can say that Kirtan is allowing me into its heart and I am building out from there. So in that way it’s broadening her reach.

Boom!

yep that's great.

great job unperson! especially appreciate the quotes/context on the backend of the paragraph.

it's like, regardless of what the end product is and whether it's more intimate or revealing or anything else, there's just the fact that it's not what she recorded. it doesn't make it better or worse or anything, it's just important to know. was irritated tor read the pfork review and see that it didn't even come up

like it let it be...naked came out without the context that before that it was let it be

Just read your review, Phil! Very nicely put, and nice to see it written down given how much it's just been taken at face value.

man the real Turiya Sings is fucking incredible tho

So I actually bought the new reissue when I saw it this weekend, couldn't help myself. But I remain baffled and disappointed that there aren't any immediate plans to reissue her version.

your review has ruined this new version for me. I was getting into it before I read but now it just feels very empty compared to the one with all the extra arrangements

It was noted in the Pitchfork review that this isn't the original album.

"On a more technical level, according to a label representative, the original Turiya Sings remains formally unreleased because the Coltrane family has never found its master synthesizer recordings.

What Coltrane’s son Ravi did find—around the time of his mother’s final album, 2004’s miraculous Translinear Light—were 1981 recordings she made of Turiya Sings featuring only her voice and Wurlitzer electric organ, an instrument that she once said came to her in a divine vision. (“In one meditation… the precise instrument I should get was revealed to me,” she said in an interview. “I didn’t need to do any research; it was just conveyed to me.”) These pared-back tracks of Coltrane’s most minimal music are now released as Kirtan: Turiya Sings, like seeds of the cassette that also, in some sense, expand it."

I've been enjoying the new reissue quite a bit since it arrived in the mail a week ago. Do agree that it would be nice to have a properly done reissue of the original cassette release, but am still very happy with this one.

I never heard the original cassette release, more than hearing part of it on WFMU (I think, memories are a little fuzzy) at one point, so it never really became deeply embedded in my DNA or anything. With that in mind, I'm surprised by how much I am enjoying this new reissue. It does have its own minimal, meditative vibe that works when presented this way. That said, I really wish they would have been able to reissue the cassette version too.

“Keshava Murahara” on my headphones right now. Almost makes me believe god exists.

ecstatic music.

saw "Turiya and Ramakrishna" featured at the top of a Spotify curated Jazz You Know-playlist

which is true

Coincidentally just listened to Ptah and yeah that track is something else

40-minute video of a performance from 1993 (solo harp, then synth/violin duos, then solo synth with vocals):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRolZjMXk3Q

amazing, thanks for sharing.

Wonderful

Truly. That was thoroughly enjoyable.

When she's playing harp at the beginning I kept expecting a bright blue glow to start appearing around her.

at long last, a legit reissue of "ptah"

https://jazz.centerstagestore.com/products/alice-coltrane-ptah-the-el-daoud-lp-verve-by-request-series

yeah placed an order for this last week after off-loading my (pretty good sounding, TBF) bootleg vinyl copy on the ebay.

makes sense, Turiya & Ramakrishna is kind of a system glitch hit on Spotify, on all sorts of really lame playlists

but what a jam

Mind blown!

TIL that Doja Cat is the girl in the pink dress, hanging with Alice Coltrane. pic.twitter.com/oLnH3KWSwb

— Dave Segal (@editaurus) September 21, 2023

ha yes this has been going around, pretty cool

huh

Doja Cat fans and AC fans are probably like who dat?

From the ages of about 8 to 12, Doja lived on a Californian ashram headed by Alice Coltrane, the wife of jazz musician John Coltrane, after Doja’s artist mother moved there from her grandmother’s house in Rye, N.Y. (Her father, who has not been a big part of her life, is South African actor and dancer Dumisani Dlamini.) While there, she learned her first dance moves from the Bharatanatyam tradition. While she doesn’t dance that way anymore, “I think that helped shape how I emote on stage because it’s a very emotional form of dance,” she says.

https://time.com/6269491/doja-cat-interview-time100/

interesting

awesome! My eldest is a big fan of both, this will blow her mind

I had this album framed on my wall for a while. It looks so good

xps am I allowed to call this pairing AC/DC?

ahem https://theheatwarps.com/2023/10/30/coltrane-santana-1974/

!!!

whoa I was just listening to that LP yesterday!

interesting

Wow. Definitely gonna dive into both of those this weekend, though the live recording is the bigger draw for me.

My first guess at a drummer for the live stuff would be Ben Riley, who was on Lord of Lords and Eternity, which were released before and after that concert, respectively.

loving the stripped down vibes

Bliss: The Eternal Now version 3 (alt take) is great

accidentally put it on repeat and I say it was stuck there for a good half hour, bliss bliss eternal now

also getting strong star wars theme vibes which i guess rules

i'm not high

but i feel high