Alice Coltrane - S/D

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 also would dearly love to find the cassette-only recordings. It seems that Ed Michel produced at least one of them.

The live album (Transfiguration?) is really, really good. Haynes & Workman are ideal sidemen for her. Anybody ever hear her album with Santana?

she also arranged some songs on one of his albums "Welcome". it's pure white with the word Welcome embossed on the cover

I hope she cuts another album in considerably shorter time than the gap between her last 2. Harp would be nice for the next one.

I'd also like to see the quadrophonic stuff reissued on multichannel SACD.

Thanks for the Alice recommendations; I'd been avoiding her for some reason. She's critically underrated.

You don't have permission to access /download/(etc. etc.)

Why me, lord?

I feel like in this interview she articulates the disinterest the jazz industry has in her music.

'Journey in Satchidananda' was a game changing record for me. It was HUGE in Glasgow in the late 90s / early 2000s.

The owner of Glasgow's FOPP Records chain, Gordon (who was Terry Hall's brother in law) was a massive and lifelong Jazz fan. He realised in the mid to late 90s that many seminal Jazz labels had stopped doing vinyl releases and couldn't imagine ever doing any again (how wrong that turned out to be!). As a result they were happy to give him the vinyl license to many classic releases for a very low fee. Thus he licensed hundreds of titles and pressed up copies that were only available in the FOPP chain. He put these albums on sale at £5 which was very, very cheap even then.

This is pretty much how I got into Jazz as at £5 one couldn't really go wrong and I discovered a ton of incredible albums. Lots and lots of Glaswegians took advantage of this wild deal and as a result a LOT of people started listening to a lot of amazing Jazz records for the first time in their lives. The breakout hit by far was Alice Coltrane's 'Journey in Satchidananda' album. I believe FOPP shifted well over a thousand copies of it in the city. It was ubiquitous and I'd seem to see it at everyone's house I ever visited. I remember going into my local newsagent one Sunday morning and he was playing (a tape of) it. My newsagent was no hipster, Jazz aficionado or even a big music fan but this record had become such a cult Glasgow album that somehow this didn't seem strange at that time.

that's so awesome.

i found my copy for $20 in a williamsburg junk store around 2013. it seemed to me like an *insane* amount of money to pay for a used record at the time

I love that story - that even in the late-90s you could still have a regional cult record seems quaint in the streaming era.

xp

I had the 180g reissue of Journey for forever, prob since early 2000s. Recently ponied up $100 for a sweet friends deal on a 1972 pressing, no regrets.

My gateway was this cool comp, scored for like $15-20 in the late 90s:

https://www.discogs.com/release/23813663-Alice-Coltrane-Reflection-On-Creation-And-Space-A-Five-Year-View

love that comp -- great cover art

I listen to jazz records but have had no contact with jazz fandom etc. so a bit surprised at the gatekeeping bullshit detailed above. I would have thought Alice was jazz royalty.
I got into buying random jazz records from a stall in Leicester market in the 90s, which would usually be £5-10. One that I picked up early on was Karma by Pharaoh Sanders, and I immediately knew this was the stuff for me. The orange Impulse spines then became a mark of quality and I'd buy any that the stall got in - the Alice ones in particular became huge favourites.

Picked my vinyl copy up from FOPP in London a decade or so ago for £10! But got the Impulse digipak back in the day for £££s, no regrets.

Oh man that 5 Year View comp is (one of) my white whales

When Impulse was doing those digi-pak cd reissues in the 90s a few of them they pressed on extremely nice heavyweight lps, with gatefold covers and bumper stickers inside, (I proudly drove a white Toyota Camry with a "The New Wave of Jazz is on Impulse!" sticker for long time), I don't recall amy AC but I have a few very nice Sanders and JC lps

Early in the pandemic, I had older friends give me about 200-250 records that had been in their garage for 30 years. Among a ton of other stuff, it included OG copies of Journey and Ptah as well as Pharoah Sanders, Thembi, none of which I had heard. Needless to say, my mind was blown.

Sanders' Thembi

Woah!

Thembi absolutely rules and that is a hell of a steal! As I get older, Alice's devotional music moves me the most. It's crazy that it remained obscure for so long.

Need to get on and listen to this new one.

^ same

or, more accurately, buy this disc(s) (liner notes by EM being, i think, what's pushed me over)

love stirmonsters story, thats so amazing