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."

Fwiw, Amazon has a pre-order for both vinyl and CD, so they're both indeed coming.

the way things have been going, i wouldn't be surprised if they were like, "We've finally restored this concert to its original version, where a technical error muted Pharoah Sanders's microphone, rendering him inaudible for the entire concert!"

― budo jeru, Wednesday, February 7, 2024 6:58 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

say more about this, is there a collective will to sand the skronkier edges off alice?

I think he's referring to the altered release of Turiya Sings?

Pre-orders are up; black vinyl, orange vinyl and a 2CD set. I got the press download last night; it sounds amazing so far. Bought the 2CD set.

xp yup

I figured this was going to be good but it is good

Very excited to get my copy, glad to upgrade that grey market bootleg with only a part of the set. So the Aquarium Drunkard review isn't just hyperbole?

Had The Carnegie Hall Concert been released in 1971 when it was originally commissioned and recorded by Impulse as a double live LP, it would undoubtedly rank among the all-time holy grails of live jazz, no, live music, period.

I mean this all-time holy grails of live jazz, no, live music, period is a bit of a high bar but a few moments on here on genuinely stunning

Haha, I figured that might be a stretch, but I am just thrilled this exists now.

it's blowing my mind imagining how mind blowing it must have been being in the audience for this. the sound quality of the recording is way better than the clips i had heard alluded to. really stunning!

It's really, really good. Waiting for my CD copy to arrive.

I wonder if it was sourced from a reference master or something because there are some moments of crunchy static and some weirdness where the applause between certain songs seems looped? Maybe the promotional WAV files I was sent were wonky, I don't know. But on a purely musical level, yeah, it's top-tier Alice.

Yeah, I read in one of the reviews that there was weird looping in the crowd sounds between songs, like they were trying to cover for some other audio glitch or something. But, whatever, if weird applause between songs is the worst things about this release, we are truly blessed.

I haven't done a really close listen yet but as far as I could tell there were only the weird, static-y audio issues during the interstitial crowd noise

Listening now, and wow.

… and yeah, the applause sounds - weird.

The applause sounds very far away but that adds something to the atmosphere

the applause is being picked up by the on stage mics rather than there being a mic recording the audience sound too.

what a great recording

re:

Had The Carnegie Hall Concert been released in 1971 when it was originally commissioned and recorded by Impulse as a double live LP, it would undoubtedly rank among the all-time holy grails of live jazz, no, live music, period.

what was the initial reception of Journey in Satchidananda like? I've a feeling it wasn't an instant classic, or maybe just that "spiritual jazz" wasn't as popular then (when fusion must've been all the rage) as it is now

I love the very no nonsense liners by Ed Michel, he's very frank that the label heads didn't think much of AC's music, were only interested in her in so far as she controlled the on the label the John Coltrane estate and that even though the recording was inexpensive to do and the quality was good and AC, Sanders, and Shepp were all on the label they weren't interested in doing a live record (though sounds like they were briefly interested when she signed with Warners 'natch)

I can't speak to what the reaction was at the time and I am sure it has been mentioned upthread but the AC re-evaluation is pretty recent, even in the early 90s when I was getting into jazz she was considered a joke, lots of Yoko Ono jokes, that sort of thing

Yeah, the dude gatekeeper aficionadoes of so many scenes are colossal assholes by nature.

misogyny is a powerful drug!
the scorn heaped on women musicians really piled up in the cursed early 90s
imo/ime

Also Michel's story about his run-in with a union stagehand is straight out of Zappa's "Rudy Wants to Buy Yez a Drink"

i didn't realize he was still alive

A former acquaintance of mine was a big John Coltrane fan, and felt that Alice had 'weakened' him in some way as he wasn't splurging out endless solos on his later records but approaching the music more texturally. He had nothing but contempt for her, musically and personally. Yes this was in the early 90s of course, don't know what he thinks about her nowadays and don't care.

There's a terrible line in Richard Cook's Jazz Encycopledia from 2005: "Her albums of her own music often come across as soft-headed and incoherent rambling… one wonders if she would have enjoyed any attention at all if she had remained plain Alice McCleod."

As anyone who's read one of the Penguin Guides will know, Cook has some spicy takes, but this is incredibly wrongheaded and misogynistic. Hugely disappointing.

that sucks. but more jazz critics are clueless losers than not, so not necessarily a surprise either, sadly

Sad but not surprising

Who cares if it’s surprising? The mundane nature of these criticisms are what characterize them for me. It’s as if everyone already believes that AC is untalented and this person is just saying it out loud.

I can't speak to what the reaction was at the time and I am sure it has been mentioned upthread but the AC re-evaluation is pretty recent, even in the early 90s when I was getting into jazz she was considered a joke, lots of Yoko Ono jokes, that sort of thing

This is really interesting to read and I'm not contradicting it at all. I do remember for me just getting into jazz as a teen in the late '90s, I was drawn to the look of all those Impulse digipak reissues and I was seeing those three AC reissues (Journey.., Ptah.., A Monastic Trio) on essentially equal footing as not just the Sanders albums but also, like...the Count Basie and Coleman Hawkins albums reissued at the same time. Obviously an ahistorical experience for me as a new listener, but it made me think her music was quality work and clearly someone at the label thought there was enough interest in her solo stuff to get those albums out there while not reissuing, say...Gabor Szabo or Shirley Scott in droves despite them both having a ton of Impulse albums.

I was drawn to the look of all those Impulse digipak reissues and I was seeing those three AC reissues (Journey.., Ptah.., A Monastic Trio) on essentially equal footing as not just the Sanders albums

Tbf that was my experience too but when I would talk to older friends, like the people who had hipped me to Ornette and Coltrane in the first place, they went out of their way to express how much they hated AC

Fair enough xp

Not mention her new age/spiritual tape-era was also seen as confirmation by those same people that her music didn't have any merit

My first encounter with her wasn't even about her music, it was clips from her public access show and she was just presented as some kind of weirdo cult leader. It was several more years until I heard her music, first Journey... and Ptah, because as has been mentioned they were the ones to get reissued. Then a few years later limited edition mini-LP CDs of Universal Consciousness and World Galaxy came out, and I got those, and eventually the double live album, Transfiguration. I remember the pump being pretty well primed (the Wire cover story helped) by the time Seraphic Light was announced and released.

The album it took the longest to find — Lord of Lords — is probably my favorite of her Impulse! run now. I don't think it was ever even reissued on its own, just paired up when Impulse! did a bunch of 2-albums-on-one-CD reissues a while back.

I've probably posted this here before but I really wish someone would press this on vinyl, even just her amazing version of Giant Steps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8xAAX198Pk

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