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 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?

:(((((

Oh, man. This is so sad.

http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?p=579829

my first thought is just like with Octavia Butler - at least we have one last work to explore that she left with us before she died.

I am going to put on "Journey In Satchidananda" now and maybe even cry a bit.

this one really comes as a surprise.

I had been listening to Lord Of Lords this morning (for the first time) and wasn't feeling her string arrangements. I mentioned how "corny and Cecil B. DeMille" they were to a friend later tonight and that was that. I feel terrible because I love Alice Coltrane's music and this was unexpected.

She lived a beautiful, full life.

the punchline writes itself i think...

alice c and michael b in the space of one weekend...not my idea of an impulse clearout... :-(

Back at work today, seeing this thread re-emerge - and being in that 'Universal Consciousness mode' which her music always seems to inspire in me - I was quite expectant to see somebody writing about a near identical experience. Quite a jolt to read such sad news in its place.

I thought she'd be around forever. She probably will be.

But surely, the level of tribute should be raised a little higher than the "holy shit what a bummer"

Anyway, listened to Eternity on the way to work today--really amazing stuff. She really was one-of-a-kind, as cliched as that might be. With her recent activity, I was hoping to catch her in concert one of these days...Are there plans afoot to release any of those shows last year? Maybe as a DVD? They sounded like cool concerts...And what's this about a big compilation of her stuff from Universal? Hadn't heard anything about that...

By Teresa Wiltz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 15, 2007; B06

Alice Coltrane, 69, a jazz pianist-harpist-composer who was the widow of saxophonist John Coltrane and retired from the world of secular music to become a spiritual leader and guru in the Vedantic philosophic tradition, has died.

Mrs. Coltrane, who died Jan. 12 at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles of respiratory failure, was a child prodigy from a working-class Detroit family.

Born Alice McCleod in 1937, she grew up steeped in the rigors of classical music, playing in church choirs, music halls, funerals, weddings, wherever and whenever she could. "Music," she told The Washington Post in October, "was just in my heart, somehow."

In time, her older half brother, Ernie Farrow, a respected bassist, introduced her to bebop. She was immediately entranced. As a teenager, she gigged with saxophonists Cannonball Adderley and Sonny Stitt.

After studying briefly in Paris with pianist Bud Powell, who melded jazz and classical sounds, Mrs. Coltrane moved to New York and joined a group led by jazz vibraphonist Terry Gibbs.

Few outside the jazz world knew her for the highly gifted musician and composer she was: An artist in her own right, she was admired for her rumbling arpeggios, for the deep vibrancy of her tone, for her dynamism as an improviser.

She joined John Coltrane's quintet in 1966, replacing pianist McCoy Tyner, and together they explored the limits of avant-garde jazz, marinating in the mysticism of Eastern music, taking her far from her Baptist upbringing.

Theirs was a brief union but one that brought three children and altered her life's trajectory. (Her eldest child, Michelle Coltrane, was the product of her first marriage, to jazz vocalist Kenny "Pancho" Hagood.)

Alice and John Coltrane met in 1962 at the Birdland in New York and quickly formed a fast partnership, two introverted souls who were fascinated with religion, architecture and languages. The couple wed in 1965 in Mexico and made a quiet life in Dix Hills, N.Y.

Her husband, 11 years her senior, introduced her to Eastern religion, meditation and philosophy and pushed her to take up the harp, at the time a rare addition to the jazz canon.

That instrument, along with her ecclesiastical explorations and experimentation with North African and Indian instrumentation, formed the musical basis of her solo albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s: "Journey in Satchidananda," the staple of many a yoga class; "Ptah the El Daoud"; "World Galaxy"; and "Universal Consciousness."

When John Coltrane died in 1967 of liver cancer at age 40, Mrs. Coltrane took a vow of celibacy and immersed herself further into spiritual life, traveling to India to study with spiritual masters such as her guru, Sri Swami Satchidananda, and the Indian sage Sri Satya Sai Baba.

She continued her jazz career for a while, playing the piano, harp and Wurlitzer organ in studio sessions with Jimmy Garrison and Pharoah Sanders, with Rashied Ali and Archie Shepp, and collaborating with Carlos Santana, Laura Nyro, McCoy Tyner and Jack DeJohnette.

In 1978, she decided to commit herself full time to her religious pursuits, though she never abandoned her work managing John Coltrane's estate. She also started the John Coltrane Foundation, which gives scholarships to young musicians.

She took on the Hindu name Turiyasangitananda and founded the Vedantic Center, paying a reported $1.3 million in 1983 for 50 acres of land nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains, about 40 miles from Los Angeles in Agoura Hills. There, she built the Sai Anantam Ashram, a communal living center where her followers could live and study. (Mrs. Coltrane settled with her family in nearby Woodland Hills.)

She never stopped making music, recording spiritual music with her ashram's choir, melding Sanskrit chants with organs and drums and a distinct gospel fervor.

In 2004 she returned to her jazz roots, releasing her last album, the critically acclaimed "Translinear Light," which included the gospel hymns of her Christian childhood, the Hindu hymns of her Vedantic-based beliefs and John Coltrane's compositions.

At the time of her death, she was working on "Sacred Language of Ascension," an album that incorporates Hebrew devotional chants, Vedic culture, Coltrane jazz and orchestral and congregational church music.

Last year, at the urging of her second-eldest son, Ravi, a saxophonist, she performed in four concerts across the country. She played with her sons, Ravi and Oran, as well as bassist Charlie Haden and members of her ashram's choir.

Survivors include her children, Michelle, Ravi and Oran; and five grandchildren. Her eldest son, John Coltrane Jr., died in a car accident in 1982.

Living With The Spirit And Legacy Of JOHN COLTRANE

THE white brick ranch-styled house is tucked inconspicuously behind black wrought-iron gates in Woodland Hills, Calif. Inside, Alice Coltrane, an accomplished jazz musician, sits quietly at the piano, glancing at the photograph of her late husband, the legendary saxophonist, John Coltrane.

It's been more than 20 years since Coltrane's death, and yet the memories are vivid and strong as thoughts of him still consume her.

"I can't miss him," she says. "He's here. I feel him here."

John Coltrane, long considered ahead of his time musically, was one of the jazz world's most innovative musicians. He worked with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk early in his career. Known as "Trane" to his friends, he went on to form his own band in the 1950s, playing radical harmonic and melodic changes that some music critics called "sheets of sound."

For four years, John and Alice Coltrane lived as husband and wife, creating "avant garde" jazz until Coltrane's untimely death in 1967. He died from liver cancer at the age of 41. Coltrane's influence over Alice, much like the musical idolatry from his fans, is remarkably strong.

Alice Coltrane claims to have spoken to her dead husband. "I see him physically in my room while I'm in a transcendental state," she says.

The first time she saw Coltrane, she says, was about a month after he died. "I was sitting in my bedroom meditating when the door opened and Coltrane walked in. He had an instrument that looked like the soprano sax he used to play," she recalls. "He was playing it. Sometimes he looked better than when he was alive."

She saw her husband on occasion over a 12-year period, Mrs. Coltrane says. It's been nine years now since she last spoke to John, and she believes it's because he's been reincarnated and is living in his next life.

She admits that many people may find her accounts to be unlikely. "I know people don't understand or believe what I'm saying," she says. "All I can say to them is to mediate and find out for themselves."

Alice McLeod Coltrane was born in Detroit in 1937, growing up in a musical family. She became an accomplished pianist, studying under the jazz pianist Bud Powell and later playing with major musicians.

In 1963, she met John coltrane in a jazz club in Europe, and what began as professional adoration soon gave way to romance. The two were married a year later, and Alice joined her husband's band in 1966 replacing pianist McCoy Tyner. Both Coltrane and his wife became deeply religious and began studying the music and religions of the East--especially India.

It seems ironic that the woman, once intensely devoted to her music, has cast it aside for what she calls "the path of devotion and understanding." She stopped touring extensively 12 years ago and cut herself off from most of her friends. "Some of it was due to location and distance," she offers. "With some, I just didn't call or correspond."

Now, Mrs. Coltrane keeps herself busy with the Vedantic Center, a spiritual center she founded 14 years ago in Agoura, Calif. As the center's director, she holds the title of swami. She also produces a spiritual half-hour television program, which is shown in the spring on Los Angeles' Channel 18.

Although she no longer performs regularly, Mrs. Coltrane carries on her late husband's music through the "John Coltrane Festival." The festival, which is funded through Coltrane's estate, highlights the work and talents of young musicians.

The Coltrane children have followed in their parents' musical footsteps. Michelle, 28; Ravi, 23, and Oran, 21, live in the Los Angeles area, spending their time studying and developing music and frequently attending their mother's spiritual services at the center. (The couple's first born son, John Jr., died in 1982).

She doesn't spend too much time in the "music room," which seems more like a shrine to her fallen hero. The room is the exact replica of the music room in the couple's former home in New York. Everything is in place, the grand piano, the Persian rugs, the many African instruments and Coltrane's numerous awards. Ironically, there is not a single saxophone in the room. One of his saxophones is stored in a back room of the house. The others are used by his sons and a nephew.

For Mrs. Coltrane there are many pleasant memories of her late husband, and for those reasons, she never remarried. "I don't know that I'd want to live in the proximity with less a man," she says... "I could never marry again."

There is talk of recording and performing again. Alice hasn't done so in 12 years. But more than anything else, she longs for others to appreciate Coltrane's musical accomplishments as much as she does. "John needed to take music to a new level," she says. "That's why when you listen to John Coltrane, you hear everything. Everything was in his music. That's why it's important for people to never forget the contributions he made."

COPYRIGHT 1989 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Tyler's link above is well worth looking at. The obit and article quoted above are a bit prosaic, aren't they?

Links to more writing on Alice Coltrane, or more obituaries, would be welcome, if anyone has any.

I listened to Eternity again last night, not having heard it for ages, and Om Supreme (which is just piano and voices) is wonderful. For someone completely anti-religious, I find stuff like this really powerful and affecting. I even love the sleeve notes, which in any other context I would dismiss as complete crap.

Jamie, I agree with you that the religious aspect of her music is not at all off-putting. It might sound a little wacky at times (to a nonbeliever), but it's never anything less than totally welcoming. Her spirituality comes across as a really individual, invigorating thing--like the best gospel music, I suppose.

Well do I remember Bobby Gillespie getting into trouble because he tried to exchange his milk tokens for a copy of A Monastic Trio on the day of its release. He got a good skelpin'!

She played a lot around Detroit before the Gibbs band, but her daughter Michelle (who I also got to meet when they were here) said that recording oppt'y was rare for a woman with a small child. Yusef Lateef (who she played with here) used to drive to NY to record and turn around & drive right back. Usually 5 guys in an Econoline van. No room for momma & baby, really.

We are so glad we got to see her play last September. We thought she'd be around a lot longer, but you never know.

A Monastic Trio is probably my favorite.

I bought "Elements" based on the recommendations on this thread, and I'm really enjoying it: the semi-slow hypnotic groove, the freeish but soulful playing, the echo and tape effects... Are there any other Henderson or Alice Coltrane LPs that would sound like this? I already have "Journey to Satchidananda".

I can't speak to Henderson's records from this time, but "Elements" isn't really a typical Alice set. However, I would recommend any of her albums as worth hearing. But if you're looking for the next one you should get, seek "Ptah the El Daoud" which features Joe H and Pharoah Sanders as a double tenor front line.

maybe check out 'Lawrence of Newark' by Larry Young.

or Herbie's "Mwandishi"

Mwandishi is an excellent suggestion--the 2 disc CD is a bargain.

I already have Crossings and Sextant, and I've been meaning to get Mwandishi for years... That Larry Young album sounds very interesting too, I think I'll check that one and Ptah the El Daoud when I visit the local jazz store next time. Thanks for the recommendations!

You may also wish to get Eddie Henderson's "Anthonology Vol.2", which contains the albums "Realization" and "Inside Out". The lineup is more or less the same as on Mwandishi, if I remember correctly.
You may want to look at the kozmigroov a-list.
Recently I've dusted off a few of these (after my initial kozmi-kick in 2003 or so) and been particularly fond of Don Cherry's "Brown Rice".

I suppose Pharoah Sanders' albums are probably the best next bet after Alice Coltrane, if you haven't got those already.

I would always turn off Ptah after 10 minutes because I felt like it wasn't going anywhere, and because it was all listed as one track I just assumed it was 40 minutes riffing on the same idea.

Imagine my surprise this week when I let it play to the 12th minute.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 this record now

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=140743198&m=140701953
^^^ alice's piano jazz interview/peformance. really great.

wow, just got to the bit where she's jamming a Chopin prelude, beautiful playing.

Is there any way to download that? Besides recording it?

this is where i first got it -- link still works! http://ileoxumare.blogspot.com/2008/03/marian-mcpartlands-piano-jazz-with.html

Thanks!!!!

been jamming the cassette-only divine songs from 1987 and it is blowing my mind

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

someone told me there is an LP of this album floating around -- is it a bootleg or something? they should really put out this stuff in more readily available form, it is very good.

Laura Veirs pays tribute on her (awesome) new album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyEOt-qjNH0

xp discogs says divine songs got a cd release, and a recent unofficial lp release.

yeah I heard abt the vinyl boot, didn't know abt the CD

either way this is quickly becoming one of my faves by her, on some kinda cosmic-stax/volt-moroder trip over here

cd reissue please

According to this blog post, there are actually four devotional releases.

Active link to the first of them, "Turiya Sings," imo the best thing she ever did:

http://rootstrata.com/rootblog/?p=4463

HOLD THE PRESSES

http://www.innerpath.com/divine-songs-cd/

They have this one too...I wonder if they take Paypal?
http://www.innerpath.com/infinite-chants-cd/

they do! but it's out of stock

ordered a copy of divine songs before you vultures have a chance to make it disappear

divine songs out of stock now as well

guilty as charged ;)

My copies have already shipped...

mine too, krishna is totally on top of the logistics over there

wonder if they're meditating on the origins of this sudden surge in turiyasangitananda demand

never really investigated the post-impulse period before. looks like there was a devotional-style release on warners in '76 called radha-krsna nama sankirtana... which is actually on spotify....

yah i used to have that on LP, kinda wish I still did

in general I prefer harp to Rhodes, though

I really like that piano thing she did as a radio broadcast too

radha-krsna nama sankirtana

B side of this is kind of an awesome organs/drums duet with Alice and one of her sons.

yeah the marian mcpartland radio thing kills, giant steps duet is heavenly

btw I can't link it right now but googling for the tape above led me to a blog with a mix called Saved from the fire compiling some of these releases, which sounds good so far

anybody care to re-up that radio piano thing

I tweeted that a month or so ago
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/23/140743198/alice-coltrane-on-piano-jazz

thx man... when I clicked on the previous NPR link it looked like it had disappeared...

here's a link to the saved from a fire devotional mix schlump mentioned

http://dublab.com/rbma-radio-saved-from-the-fire-the-ashram-tapes-of-alice-coltrane-by-frosty/

but it really just scratches the surface and lacks some of the more jaw-dropping moments from these albums IMO

lost in a turiyasangitananda k-hole rn

looks like there was a devotional-style release on warners in '76 called radha-krsna nama sankirtana

I have that on CD (on the Wounded Bird label). This guy right here. It's really good.

I adore those super obscure Alice things from the 80s, too, would love to own them! They are a real revelation.

I think the first side of that Radha-Krsna thing one is pretty great/uplifting and the second side jam is incredibly bad... easily the worst thing she ever touched, mostly because John's son is a terrible drummer! That 2xcd live thing Transfiguration is 100x better if you want to hear her wailing away endlessly like that. Her wonderful John-imitation with the electric organ is front and center in the mix and sometimes comes uncannily close to his sound.

I recently got a 1970's McCoy Tyner album (Extensions, I think) where she is prominently playing harp which I had never heard of before and that's pretty amazing stuff, too!!! Highly recommended.

beautiful, beautiful thread revive

I recently got a 1970's McCoy Tyner album (Extensions, I think) where she is prominently playing harp which I had never heard of before and that's pretty amazing stuff, too!!! Highly recommended.

This album is part of an excellent Mosaic Records 3CD set gathering Tyner's late '60s/early '70s Blue Note albums, all of which are great.

I remember before she died she had another devotional album prepped...I guess it never happened.

http://www.alicecoltrane.org/sacredlanguage.html

Looks like her website hasn't been updated in quite some time.

got my copy of divine songs yesterday, sounds great, best of the devotional works imo, glad I snagged one

Got a copy of 'Divine Songs' on vinyl...so so beautiful...anyone know if some of the songs have been edited?...

here's an important question - on Journey in Satchidananda, the track "Isis and Osiris" was recorded live at The Village Gate, New York City, on July 4, 1970. is there a recording of the full show? seems like it would be great - Sanders, Haden, Ali and Alice...

good question, it led me to this video aggregation:

http://www.desisrus.com/videofeed/PdHTytrKo1Q

live John Coltrane footage, etc.

cool!

oooooh. never thought about that before...if something was dug up, that would be rad!

yeah, sort of seems like it would have been dug up already, but who knows? July 4 1970! what a day.

Just starting in on this thread but

Eternity - i love this album. why? because she plays a Fender Rhodes. it's also a lot more rooted in blues and jazz than some of her prior albums that were all about free jazz and stravinsky. Om Supreme is such a beautiful song. (one of the only songs of hers that i know of that has lyrics in english).

Am so totally smitten with this album, and Om Supreme in particular (though surprised JasonD loved it so much as one of the tracks is a piece from The Rites Of Spring). Our baby daughter was born in distress earlier this year, and she and her mother had to stay in hospital for a week (both fine now), and each night I found both this album and Om Supreme in particular to be a real comfort. Wonderful music. (And after my daughter was able to come home, one afternoon I was holding her in our front room while the Stravinsky piece from this album was playing, and I swear she began 'air conducting' along with the music.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY2etLKUfAs

Mmm could listen to Alice on her Fender Rhodes forever, like Pharoah Sanders I am not overly keen on the hippyish, spiritualist excess of some of her music, especially on her vocal recordings. But albums like this one and Lord Of Lords are perfection.

wow did these 80s "spiritual guide" videos get posted here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA5ZwS4oonQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKKInfup8Mw

lol, I'm pretty sure I posted both of those on the vaporwave thread

what an odd accent/affect she had

QUEEN

wow!

definitely an interesting person... this interview from 1970 is mostly about John (recorded on his birthday) but it is well worth a listen: https://www.cc-seas.columbia.edu/wkcr/archives/Jazz%20Archive/artist/Alice%20Coltrane

This Red Bull Music Academy piece is great. (I've been hearing for a little while about the previously unreleased music mentioned at the end of the piece. Supposedly, Ravi Coltrane wants to put it out on his own label or something, but hasn't been able to get it together yet.)

yeah i think i heard an audience tape of that at some point? definitely ambitious.
or wait maybe this is the one i was thinking of: http://www.bigozine2.com/archive/ARrarities07/ARacucla.html

what i've always wanted to hear is the complete show that "isis and osiris" came from on journey in satchidananda -- "recorded live at The Village Gate, New York City, on July 4, 1970" with charlie haden, pharoah sanders etc ... the tape must be ... somewhere!

She turns up as a very obvious (acknowledged) influence on the new Radiohead album. It occurs to me that some of her Ptah stuff could have worked as music for "Peanuts" just as well as what eventually got used. Probably my most listened to jazz person after Larry Coryell.

I think Lord of Lords is the only one of the non-chant ones I don't own & have never heard. I should pick it up some time.

I was just playing the hell out of Joe Henderson's 'Elements' with her and it's a shame that whole band never cut a record under her name. It would have been great hearing Michael White play her material.

Turiya Sings is really wonderful

Going Home off Lord of Lords is absolute classic. I generally have an aversion to spiritual jazz, but certainly not with Alice Coltrane.

Lord of Lords is really great. Her version of Stravinsky's Firebird is fantastic.

Something similar that was probably a big influence on both Alice and John C is Yusef Lateef's awesome Eastern Sounds album. I listening to it a lot recently and it has gone way up in my estimation.

have been listening*

See also side 2 of The Diverse Yusef Lateef.

Divine Songs seriously needs a good reissue doesn't it.

A quick ctrl-f on this thread indicates it's more available than I thought. Is that CD decent quality? /stevehoffman

I have the Divine Songs and Infinite Chants CDs; they're official productions, so they sound great. I don't know how good the Turiya Sings CD, which is on some German label, sounds. It's a little pricey for me to just take the chance.

I wish they'd reissue the last one, Glorious Chants.

If you like Lateef's Eastern Sounds, you should pick up 'Cry-Tender!' if you haven't already. Side 1 is the blueprint for ES, and just a great record in general.

Oh yeah! I love a lot of his 50's/60's albums including The Golden Flute and his later drift into fusion yielded some good stuff as well.

Lateef is one of those guys I've never had time to investigate 'cause he's got, like, 75 albums. If there was a box gathering up his mid-'60s to early-'70s Atlantic albums, I'd buy it in a minute, 'cause that's the stuff I'm most interested in.

Apple Music has been great in this regard. I 'spun' The Doctor Is In... And Out! the other day for the first time. It's all over the place but was pretty much a blast through and through.

Tidal (I guess that will soon be Apple Music) has a ton of his stuff as well, including The Doctor, Golden Flute, Cry Tender...

YES

http://pitchfork.com/news/72008-alice-coltrane-compilation-to-be-released-on-david-byrnes-luaka-bop/

David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label has announced a new Alice Coltrane compilation. It’s called World Spirituality Classics, Volume 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, and it’s out May 5. The record features music Coltrane made while she lived at the Sai Anantam Ashram, which she established in 1983. The songs (recorded between 1982 and 1995) had previously been available only on cassettes distributed within her spiritual community.

Luaka Bop worked with Coltrane’s children to locate the original master tapes for the tracks. Engineer Baker Bigsby (John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra) remastered the recordings. The compilation comes with liner notes by Ashley Kahn, interviews with people close to Coltrane, and a conversation about Coltrane between Surya Botofasina (raised on Coltrane’s ashram) and Pitchfork contributor Andy Beta.

World Spirituality Classics, Volume 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda:

01 Om Rama
02 Om Shanti
03 Rama Rama
04 Rama Guru
05 Hari Narayan
06 Journey to Satchidananda
07 Er Ra
08 Keshnava Murahara
09 Krisha Japaye *
10 Rama Katha *

*vinyl only

this is very timely. i've been listening to her ashram tapes nonstop recently, via an incomplete set of youtube clips. it's too bad they're not re-releasing the albums (4, i think?) in full, but having at least some of it on vinyl will be a real treat. i can't wait.

OMG, that's amazing news. I wasn't even aware of that material but I love Alice Coltrane so much.

there was discussion about it on another alice thread recently (can't find it, RIP search), but this is a good place to start: http://dublab.com/rbma-radio-saved-from-the-fire-the-ashram-tapes-of-alice-coltrane-by-frosty/

breaking that down in terms of tracks per album:

Turiya Sings: Rama Katha

Divine Songs: Om Shanti, Rama Guru, Rama Rama, Hari Narayan, Er Ra, Keshava Murahara

Infinite Chants: Om Rama, maybe a different Rama Guru, Krishna Japaye

Glorious Chants: Journey To Satchidananda

so a pretty good overview, this is cool

Two of the albums - Divine Songs and Infinite Chants - are still available on CD, I think; I bought my copies from her ashram bookstore a few years ago. Turiya Sings was reissued on CD by a European label, Be Jazz, in 2015, but I think it was a boot 'cause you can't find copies anywhere anymore and Discogs won't let people sell it there. Glorious Chants was only ever released on CD, way back in 1990, and has never been reissued.

Since I already have the bulk of this material, I probably don't need the compilation, but I am kinda pissed that two of the tracks are vinyl-only.

this is a good place to start: http://dublab.com/rbma-radio-saved-from-the-fire-the-ashram-tapes-of-alice-coltrane-by-frosty/

i should mention that i like that for the writing, not so much for the mix that's included. the mix is good, but tbh i prefer to just put all of this on:

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

this is challopsy but i think it might be my favorite alice coltrane album.music doesn't do this to me frequently, to this degree, but it really transports me.

i've never ventured beyond those three impulse albums - monastic trio, ptah el daoud, and journey. journey i first heard when i was about 14 or 15 from my older brother and it's been one of my favorite albums since then. what would be good to go to next?

marcos, check out world galaxy and eternity next, though you should eventually hear everything she did in the 70s and 80s (agree with karl that turiya sings is her best album).

this is her single greatest track imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJo9k-Y0Hzc

as Karl notes, Turiya Sings is great and you can find it on MP3 via Google

Huntington Ashram Monastery is the other early one you are missing there, also great.

World Galaxy gets deeper into the "wall of strings" sound and is kinda expensive but v v good

I was never as big of a fan of the organ-period albums, so I'd go for any of the devotional ones next, the 2 ashram CDs mentioned are also excellent

Check out her next few Impulse albums - Universal Consciousness, World Galaxy, and Lord of Lords. LoL is the least regarded of those, but I think it's my favorite. You may also like Infinity, on which she arranged strings surrounding some otherwise unreleased John Coltrane recordings. A lot of people find that sacrilegious; I think the results are great.

cool thank you all!

universal consciousness is incredible — beautiful orchestral arrangements.
yeah, not sure why they aren't putting out all of the 80s/90s records (maybe they're forthcoming). listened to the comp via promo mp3 this morning, sounds totally wonderful.

oh shit yeah I forgot abt Universal Consciousness, that's pretty essential

I also love Infinity and the massed strings, haters can suck it

re: expensive, there are cheap impulse two-fers pairing World Galaxy/Huntington Ashram Monastery and Universal Consciousness/Lord of Lords.

i've never ventured beyond those three impulse albums - monastic trio, ptah el daoud, and journey.

those are actually my fav 3* to listen to all the way through. i really like large portions of her other 70s albums but often there's a free jazz track that gets a little too intense and i end up skipping. (my jazz collection is full of free jazz that i'm too much of a wimp to endure).

*other than turiya sings, but her devotional albums are almost a different category

the orchestral stuff can get pretty nuts/intense -- it's hard for me to imagine exactly how they got the string players to do what they do. great that she was given the budget to do it though.

listened to the comp via promo mp3 this morning, sounds totally wonderful.

Who's handling it? You can let me know via the burningambulance at gmail address if you like.

got it via an editor via this guy -- http://shorefire.com/team/profile/max-lefkowitz

Two of the albums - Divine Songs and Infinite Chants - are still available on CD, I think

also worth noting that these two discs comprise 8 out of the 10 tracks on this new release...

http://www.innerpath.com/swamini-turiyasangitananda/

Yeah, I have Divine Songs and Infinite Chants on CD too, so it's pretty disingenuous to advertise the songs on this new comp as having "previously been available only on cassette".

That dublab mix really opened this stuff up for me, and I think I listen to the Ashram stuff more than any other Alice these days. I welcome the compilation but would really like the complete set. Hopefully forthcoming!

Suspect so. Luaka Bop comps always seem to kick off a round of original album reissues.

yeah, see also Os Mutantes

yeah imagine all of 'em will be made available on vinyl sometime soon. An introductory comp isn't a bad idea imo -- i imagine most people would still hear the name Alice Coltrane and say "Is she related to John Coltrane?"

Listening to it now. People who've never heard this stuff before are gonna have their skulls popped open like stuck jar lids. (The promo included the two vinyl-only bonus tracks.) It's crazy; her singing voice is almost Sade-like.

ha, i wouldn't go that far but i do enjoy her voice a lot.

http://www.npr.org/2017/04/27/525541596/first-listen-the-ecstatic-music-of-alice-coltrane-turiyasangitananda

this is so so good.

yes

TBH, I think the "hidden treasure" status of these recordings have made people overrate them. I own two of the albums this compilation is mostly culled from (Infinite Chants and Divine Chants), and I'm sure they were important to her and her congregation, but mostly it's just rather functional music of/for religious services.

Besides some neat synth flourishes, there isn't really the sort of unique and original approach she had when expressing the same sentiments (and even interpreting the same music, such as with "Hare Krishna" on Universal Consciousness) through the jazz idiom and with jazz players.

I dunno, I haven't heard Turiya Sings, so maybe that one is really mind-blowing, but the chant albums aren't. Without her name attached they'd be filler in the New Age shelf of your record store. They're pleasant to listen, to be sure, but there are loads of New Age albums more interesting and more worthy of rediscovery.

strongly disagree, the loose spacy unrehearsed feeling of these recordings is what I love about them. I certainly prefer them to the organ-centered records of the 70's.

yeah, disagree as well -- i think what's impressive about her devotional stuff is that it still has so much of her own musical sensibility. even though it has a functional side as you say, it always feels deeply personal to my ears.

i was kind of meh on the idea of releasing a single compilation rather than just the individual albums (if they would have done that and made it a box, i would have bought it).

but i have to say, after listening to the npr full album stream, the way the sequencing navigates through these albums is perfect. the second side is just...fucking intense. "Journey To Satchidananda" is maybe my favorite thing she ever did ("Journey In Satchidananda" might be my number two. i think i just love her musical version of satchidananda and adjacent realms?), so that's going to naturally elevate the side. but 'Er Ra' manages to sustain the serene momentum like you're puffing up over the clouds a bit. and then when the closing 'Keshava Murahara' deploys the sweeping synth sound that she uses throughout the rest of the selections (and throughout all four of the albums from this period), it somehow hits so much harder. especially on headphones. it is intense and almost unbearable.

yeah the comp does feel thoughtfully sequenced ... i assume after it sells 12,000,000 copies and singlehandedly sets the world on a better path they'll just reish the albums.

Wow, I haven't heard this material before. I almost can't believe how sample-ready it is (and how modern some of it sounds!), surely it's been sampled in a lot of rap/dance music?

The air raid siren synths!

I think the albums are next in line for release. Or at least that's what I've heard.

And Tuomas so not OTM. This is strange, beautiful and essential music.

yeah the comp does feel thoughtfully sequenced ... i assume after it sells 12,000,000 copies and singlehandedly sets the world on a better path they'll just reish the albums.

Like we discussed upthread, two of the albums (which provide most of the tracks on this comp) are still available, I think someone even posted a link where to buy them. I ordered them from some New Age store a few years ago. I think it's only Turiya Sings that's been available on cassette only, the story with this comp's press release that the others have never been reissued on CD is simply not true.

xxp yesssss

records that are in-print and much more readily available get reissued all the time, what's the big deal

Listening more I think I have heard some of this material before, but it was probably way back in filesharing days?

Turiya Sings was bootlegged by some German label in 2015, but that edition has since been withdrawn.

My favorite tracks from these are the ones where there's a sort of gospel-ish male singer atop the synths and Indian percussion. It's a very cool blend of sounds.

"Like we discussed upthread, two of the albums (which provide most of the tracks on this comp) are still available, I think someone even posted a link where to buy them"

I just had a look at the Inner path website and it doesn't seem that the discs are available. I'm happy for Luaka Bop to get this material a bit of a promotional push and I do hope the individual releases are reissued.

the story with this comp's press release that the others have never been reissued on CD is simply not true.

this claim only appears at the pitchfork link above. neither the luaka bop site nor the npr piece say this.

Luaka Bop has had these remastered from what I understand (? Dunno since I don't have the comp handy)

Just searched my Gmail archives and found an email I sent to The Wire's then-reviews editor, telling him that all four of these albums were going to be reissued on CD, along with an entire disc of unreleased music in a similar style, by a label called RKM, formed by Ravi Coltrane, his wife Kathleen, and clarinetist Mike McGinnis. That was in January 2014. Coltrane and his wife have since split, as far as I know, so that's probably why that never happened.

I don't hear much difference between the CDs I have and the posted online on the NPR site? Certainly they didn't particularly call for any remastering, they sound fine. But I get it that making them more easily available is a reason enough for a reissue. I would definitely buy Turiya Sings if they ever come to reissuing it, since with that one it really is impossible to find a copy. Seems like the comp only has one song from that album though?

(xpost)

breaking that down in terms of tracks per album:

Turiya Sings: Rama Katha

Divine Songs: Om Shanti, Rama Guru, Rama Rama, Hari Narayan, Er Ra, Keshava Murahara

Infinite Chants: Om Rama, maybe a different Rama Guru, Krishna Japaye

Glorious Chants: Journey To Satchidananda

so a pretty good overview, this is cool

― sleeve, Thursday, March 2, 2017 9:32 AM (one month ago)

haha, red bull is on board.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-iNM0BVoAAsDUm.jpg:large

makes me want to slurp down a red bull!

Ravi Coltrane and the ashram's choir are doing a RBMA Nyc show of Alice's music in late may, hence that bullboard

wow, german 2015 bootleg of "turiya sings" must be some real black market shit. discogs won't allow anybody to list it for sale

meanwhile, some jerk is trying to get $250 for the original cassette

HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE INSANE

I'm interested in why Alice Coltrane is having her moment now. Like, what's coming together that makes her speak to so many that she's moving from being a cult artist to a widely adored artist. Like the Robert Johnson moment in the late 80s, culminating in the reissue, or Gang of Four circa 2001.

I think it must at least partially have to do with L.A., Flying Lotus, Kamasi & neo-spiritual jazz, etc.

I 'own' all the ashram records, but have never really experienced them as discrete experiences, as such - partly due to the fact of owning them digitally, I guess. Anyway, in reflection I like the group chant exercises well enough, but it's Alice on her own with minimal swelling synth backings that transport me. Of the tracks on the new compilation, it's 'Keshava Murahara' that utterly destroys me.

i like this new compilation a lot. tuomas off the money

Geeta Dayal posted this early footage on twitter yesterday, great to see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H6sRYIaChw

Picking up the comp on Monday.

damn that is awesome

wow

Cool.

did i ever write itt abt alice playing w arthur russell

it is a mystery anyway

hyped to hear this record !, these tapes are so beautiful but i don't think i ever got my blogspots in a row to hear every last thing

I'm sure this has been linked here before - maybe even by me - but it is wonderful. I think her piano version of Giant Steps might be my favourite version ever. And the interview is charming.

I would definitely buy Turiya Sings if they ever come to reissuing it, since with that one it really is impossible to find a copy. Seems like the comp only has one song from that album though?

Yes - the "vinyl only" bonus track, which is lame (I want this on CD)

Double shot of "Om Shanti" and "Rama Rama" is just an incredible 15 minutes of music

Will buy all the single-disc reissues if / when they materialize

I hear the Sade thing

The last few minutes of "Journey to Satchidanada" get kinda "Janitor of Lunacy," don't they?!

Amazing music

Forgot to post my link above http://www.npr.org/2011/09/23/140743198/alice-coltrane-on-piano-jazz

i love this performance, esp the middle minutes and closing section where she's complimenting the glissandos with the single-plucked harmony. there's no way (for me) to describe it without sounding like a jackass but she creates a tremendous feeling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XNG7tmIQx4

great stuff

I finally just picked up Transcendence on ebay for a decent price. Looking forward to hearing it. I think the only pre-ashram LP I'm missing now is World Galaxy, which used to be common and cheaper, but is now fetching bigger $$$, not sure why.

Kind of a grey day here in the old Orange County, so I ventured over to Barnes and Noble to grab a cup of coffee and see if they might have stocked this by total chance.

And they did!

Listening now, wonderful, and totally complimentary to today's mood.

Tuomas — what the hell's your problem, man?

Tuomas, like, many an ilxor, is the self-styled protector of certain artist's discographies. In his case the list of artists include Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. By logical extrapolation this might also include McCoy Tyner, but I'm not sure.

I figured it may have something to do with the now "less obscure" status of this material and his bitterness about that. Snobs gots probs.

This music, though: so haunting, so gorgeous.

There was a doublepack set of live stuff upped to Dime over the last few days. 1 28 minute track from '71 and 4 or 5 tracks from '74 I think. Credits were a bit confused.

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=592823

I figured it may have something to do with the now "less obscure" status of this material and his bitterness about that. Snobs gots probs.

Thanks for telling me how I'm being snobby and bitter when I didn't even know it myself, how illuminating!

I'm perfectly happy these albums are getting a wider release cos now people can objectively judge whether they really are worthy of their semi-mythical status. I bought Infinite Chants and Divine Songs a couple of years ago, and since I love both Alice Coltrane and good New Age music, I really wanted to to love them, but to my ears they're not just that special. Some nice overdriven synth sounds played by Coltrane, but most of what makes her jazz albums so distinctive (her innovative arrangements, deep cosmic/gospel grooves, her harp playing!) just isn't there. Take away the synths and the rest of it sounds like the stuff I heard at the local Hare Krishna temple in the '90s when I went there to mooch on the free vegan food they were serving. It's pleasant, functional music for service, but it's hardly as inspired as her jazz material, and there's plenty of b

...there's plenty of better, freakier and more idiosyncratic New Age music available too along these lines.

Found the vegan.

yo stevolende could you cut n paste the info about the 71 and 74 live sets? thanks! curious -- i've heard the carnegie hall "africa" and then there's another pretty lo-fi 71 tape in Berkeley. Don't think I've heard anything from 74.

Found these two Alice Coltrane shows online as a set. Both sets remain unissued, and thus are suitable for dime. The first track is from a private tape of the 1971 Carnegie Hall performance, which had 4 songs total.
Full info for first set here (only Africa is included in this .torrent, I would love to get the rest if anyone has it) http://www.angelfire.com/id2/laotan/1971.html
Ed Michael, producer of this and many other recordings of Pharoah, Alice and John coltrane writes on his web site: "This was a recording made at a concert to celebrate Swami Satchidananda's birthday, presented by Sid Bernstein, which also featured The Rascals and Laura Nyro. Amazingly, it remains unissued."
In addition he says: "These were running times from my stopwatch at the concert, so may not be absolutely precise. The whole thing does exist. It was recorded on 4-track tape, and Alice Coltrane has a copy of the 4-track, and, if I am not mistaken, the original master as well."

Dug a little deeper for the info on the second set and also found the included PDF which contains some original ad for the event. Apparently it was the 5th Annual UC Jazz Festival at Greek Theatre, University of California. Seemingly the whole set is here. Other acts that night included Sun Ra and The Last Poets to name a few.

---------------------------
ORIGINAL INFO:

Alice Coltrane
Carnegie Hall
February 21, 1971

FM

Alice Coltrane - piano, harp
Pharoah Sanders - ts, ss,fl, perc, fife
Archie Shepp - ts,ss,perc
Jimmy Garrison - b
Cecil McBee - b
Clifford Jarvis - d
Ed Blackwell - d
Tulsi - tamboura
Kumar Kramer - harmonium

1. Africa (28:35)
____________________________

Alice Coltrane
Berkeley, CA
April 23, 1971

Audience
The torrent seed itself says 71 and 74 but the info all says 71. So maybe it is all 71. I thought the players in the band might be wrong for 74.
anyway this is copied straight from the site.

Alice Coltrane, p, harp
Archie Shepp reeds
Pharoah sanders reeds
Frank Lowe reeds
Jimmy Garrison bass
Clifford Jarvis drums

2. Journey in Satchidananda (Alice Coltrane) 11:47
3. unidentified 7:36
4. Africa (John Coltrane) 25:33

thanks! ok, yeah, i think that berkeley tape is the one I've heard -- great performance, pretty distant sound. worth hearing though.

that just posted in a weird way, not sure why the info got in front of the comment from me which was

The torrent seed itself says 71 and 74 but the info all says 71. So maybe it is all 71. I thought the players in the band might be wrong for 74.
anyway this is copied straight from the site.

yeah I was confused about that 71/74 difference as well (shrugs)

this ecstatic music comp is amazing. I really want to sample and loop certain bits for some nice saer-style house music

In my ongoing personal Alice Coltrane revival, I think I've come to the realization that Transcendence from 1977 is her overall prettiest album, and therefore, ranks pretty highly for me.

agreed, could have titled it 'Ambient 5: Music for Ashrams'

I believe there is a Panduranga Henderson album recorded with Alice Coltrane at Shanti Anantam Ashram coming soon too.

the new ecstatic comp was the opening music last night at the Swans concert, right before they went on. earlier (and after) it was Terry Riley's 'Shri Camel' and Monk's 'Dolmen Music'. good company.

and here it is

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/panduranga-john-henderson-ocean-of-love

whoa

after getting assed out on that sun ra exotica set I should pick this up before I have to seek it from an ebay vulture

fwiw the Sun Ra set is available digitally on Bandcamp

Being on Luaka Bop.it should be around for a while, no. But I'm not bothered about vinyl so it's easy to be blasé.

I wonder if Inner Path had original copies of this sitting around all that time.

yeah i've been listening to it like crazy - it's great (xp)

so much late pass but after 'liking' alice coltrane for a long time i feel like she's finally starting to click for me in a major way. turiya sings but also ptah the el daoud, which just feels like a place of refuge to me now.

"Turiya & Ramakrishna", off of ptah the el daoud, is so beautiful. it is one of the songs of 2018 for me

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=619318

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda: The Ashram Experience
March 24, 2018
Knoxville, TN @ St. John's Cathedral - Big Ears Music Festival

internal mics > Zoom H1 > WAV > CD Wave Editor (tracking) > FLAC

01. Invocation
02. Introduction by John Schaefer
03. Sivaya
04. Rama Rama
05. Krishna Japaye
06. ???
07. Journey To Satchidananda
08. Om Shanti
09. ???
10. ???

The Sai Anantam Ashram Singers
??? - keyboards
??? - drums

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda: The Ashram Experience
The Sai Anantam Singers will guide an intoxicating journey through Alice Coltrane’s devotional music with Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda: The Ashram Experience. These profound performances—publicly available at long last—will be a rare treat for Big Ears audiences.

Alice Coltrane died in 2007, exactly four decades after her husband and collaborator, the saxophone titan John Coltrane. In the years immediately after his death, Alice admitted, she struggled immensely, a single mother of four mourning the loss of an extremely creative partnership. She began to heal, though, when she stumbled into the teachings of an Indian guru and the spiritual peace offered in the practice and customs of Hinduism. She traveled to India, founded a spiritual center in San Francisco, and eventually relocated to an expansive ashram in the hills of Southern California. Alice Coltrane—the jazz musician whose Journey In Satchidananda had become a cult classic—became Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, the leader of a religious practice that depended upon, as one might imagine, traditional devotional songs given an unlikely soulful update.

The eight tracks of 'The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda'—the first release in a series of spiritual records from Luaka Bop, the eclectic bastion launched by David Byrne—were culled from a set of cassettes Turiyasangitananda released for her followers between 1982 and 1995. The crowd gathered for the service becomes an ad hoc choir for these bhajans, or songs of devotion, with Coltrane’s warm mahogany voice leading them in spirited recitation. Funky handclaps and circular drums, astral synthesizers and droning tamboura wrap beneath the words, alternately suggesting primal Detroit soul and trance-inducing calm. The songs seem to smear time itself, so that ten-minute spans seem to pass in a perfect moment. A decade after her death, Coltrane’s Sai Anantam is selling its land and disassembling. But these profound performances—publicly available at long last and revived live by a longtime group of devotees in rare concerts—will last forever. The ensemble will perform twice at Big Ears 2018.

sing me awake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17P-gSE66TI

There's a 2CD set coming out on Friday, Spiritual Eternal: The Complete Warner Bros. Studio Recordings, which includes three albums, Eternity, Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana, and Transcendence.

Eternity is an out-there album in a discography full of them

far out eternity may be, Om Supreme is one of my favourite pieces of music of all time

agreed, it’s so wonderful. That fat keyboard sound when it hits the lower registers combined with the ethereal voices is just the best.

man I don't think I've ever heard that one! the only one of the original run I'm missing.

somebody tell me about this mystery record with no date:

https://www.discogs.com/Terry-Gibbs-Alice-Coltrane-El-Nutto/release/7080116

Eternity might be her most patchwork album. Every track is completely different from the others. I listened to it last night and like it a lot (except for the lyrics about California, which are just goofy) but it'll take a few more run-throughs to really sink in. Right now my favorite of her albums (and this changes all the time) is Lord of Lords.

far out eternity may be, Om Supreme is one of my favourite pieces of music of all time

― canary christ (stevie), Wednesday, September 5, 2018 8:05 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

YES. My favorite track of hers after "Galaxy In Turiya"

What you call ‘patchwork’ I call ‘diverse’.

I think it was Vernon Reid who tweeted something recently about Alice Coltrane's technique of momentarily switching the organ off and then on again to get the pitch bend effect. Los Caballos on Eternity is a particularly woozy (and groovy) example of that.

Los Callabos is nuts, love that track

are there any biographies of alice coltrane?

from a piece on the quietus i just ran across, it talks a bit about what she went through after john's death:

Grief can do amazing, terrible and bottomlessly strange things to you. In the period following John Coltrane's death, the harp that he'd ordered a few months previously arrived and Alice began to play it. She also entered into what she described as her tapas – a period of spiritual cleansing – where she fasted, deprived herself of sleep, meditated, hallucinated, and was admitted to hospital after purposefully burning herself during "examinations" to see her body's further reactions to extremity.

her life is so interesting. i'd love to learn more.

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/sjr/product/alice-coltrane-turiyasangitananda-monument-eternal

oh cool, i had no idea! have you read it?

confusingly, there's another biography by the same name, published in 2010: https://www.amazon.com/Monument-Eternal-Music-Coltrane-Culture/dp/0819569259
anyone read either the 1977 autobiography or 2010 biography?

Listened to Translinear Light tonight for the first time in about a decade. It’s subdued and restrained compared to her 70s albums, of course, but it’s still pretty good.

It suffers from the rounded edges of contemporary mainstream jazz production, but yes, it's still a good album.

Came across this 2009 interview - from Essence magazine! - this morning. Long and worth a read.

I'm assuming they did the interview shortly after TL was released.

Based on the John-Coltrane's-80th hook, 2006.

Ahhh got it. Will bookmark to read later

Her recently-closed ashram was lost to the California fires

https://pitchfork.com/news/alice-coltranes-ashram-lost-in-california-wildfires/

Hoping there will be digital at some point of this here 'Previously unreleased and not known to exist soundboard recording' from '72

discussed a bit upthread by tylerw, Stevolende, and others, you gotta show all answers to see it though

so infuriating to see DIME uploads become vinyl bootlegs after a few years

the show discussed upthread is an audience tape with different personnel, from '71 rather than '72?

oh cool I think you're right? I was totally confused by the time we finished discussing those dates, but yeah the tracklist looks different on closer examination

Yeah seems to be a different (new to me) recording than the other Berkeley AC recording. Samples sound great.

Gonna definitely keep an eye out for that to show up on a blog (no turntable).

the 2LP 1973 boot is mind-boggling, like absolutely essential. search by any means necessary, PM me if you want FLAC files.

and WTF this other one just showed up?

https://forcedexposure.com/Catalog/coltrane-alice-carnegie-hall-71-cd/HH.3093CD.html

Alice Coltrane, live at Carnegie Hall, New York on February 21st, 1971. On Sunday, February 21st, 1971, a benefit was held in New York's Carnegie Hall for Swami Satchidanda's Integral Yoga Institute, featuring Laura Nyro, the New Rascals, and Alice Coltrane's All-Stars. The latter band was a remarkable coming-together of talent, with Lady Trane joined by legends such as Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, and Jimmy Garrison on stupendous form (with a little assistance from members of the Yoga Institute). The astounding performance of John Coltrane's "Africa" on this set, finds them improvising thrillingly. Includes the entire WQXR-FM broadcast, digitally remastered and accompanied by background notes and images. Also features: Kumar Kramer (harmonium), Jimmy Garrison (bass), Cecil McBee (bass), Clifford Jarvis (drums), and Ed Blackwell (drums).

sorry I meant the 1972 2LP boot:

https://www.discogs.com/Alice-Coltrane-Sextet-Live-At-The-Berkeley-Community-Theater-1972/release/13701911

Ooh this is my shit, will hit u up for files in the a.m

cool yeah lmk

apparently the 1971 CD I pasted the details of above was released a year ago, I just learned about it today when I was searching for more details on the new 2LP BCT release, I'm on side 4 of the new one now and her keyboard playing is just ferocious

Sent you a message about the new one. The 1971 recordings have circulated forever - I have a really shitty sounding version that was uploaded in like 2010.

I appreciate the heads up! Small combo + Indian instruments is my favorite version of Alice

Awaiting delivery of the 1972 boot and v v v excited

Also, I am wearing this today https://assets.bigcartel.com/product_images/236992853/D9A4BBE4-9BB3-4403-B3EC-43E3144CDDF3.jpeg?auto=format&fit=max&h=1000&w=1000

WELCOME BACK SHAKES YOU HAVE BEEN MISSED

sleeve plz check yr ilx webmail thx

noted, I'll be getting back to folks later today

Οὖτις I don't see an email from you yet FYI

huh that's weird, just tried again

sent u one as well

this is fabulous, many thx

thank you sleeve

Yeah, this is really good. The sound quality's a lot better than I expected.

hit me at tywilc @ gmail PLZ sleeve! actually bought the 2LP but need the digital files so that i can go out into a field and listen to it.

ahem at sleeve as well via ilxmail if possible
that shirt is fucking amazing

Can't wait to dig into this. Ty, sleeve!

ulysses the webmails are taking a while to come through but I did eventually get Outic's, still waiting on yrs

sleeve is a king among men

yay and thanks

forks I still haven't seen yr webmail but I found yr email on file with me so check it!

ha cha!

If anyone can YSI me I'll return the favor

Many thanks Miner!

If anyone's in need for the kosmigroov hit me up

email sent, MF - see if that works for you

Halfway through my first play of side 1 and woah when the sitar and tabla kick in then WOAH

yup, amazing stuff

love her spoken intro as well

sleeve how can i grab those flacs off of you? is it okay to ILX webmail you? Thanks in advance...

yah go ahead!

What organ is she playing on this? Sounds something like a farfisa but with a tone wheel, cuz she definitely bends notes

yeah the wild bending is very distinctive, I noticed that as well

she played a Wurlitzer a lot in the 70s, but used to get pitch bends on her Hammond by quickly switching the electricity off and on(!)

a "1971 Wurlitzer 805 Centura that included, above its two full-size keyboards, an Orbit III analogue synth" according to a Quietus article

Wow what a beast. Synth looks like it has some portamento/pitch bend

wild, thanks for the info y'all

just emailed you, wanna hear this! :)

thanks again!

OK I think I've gotten back to everyone except ILX user "Birds in Hell" - you gotta leave me your email in the webmail you send, ILX doesn't send it.

this couldn't be much better.

it really is pretty great. a fairly major addition to the AC canon!
interesting to hear such a large and enthusiastic crowd, too — i always wonder who was buying her records back in the day.

Hey can I join the list too...thanks

if anyone just wants to have a listen:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPQJa07yWl26gnlBlNWcwpnB2Xzwznqzf

only thing that would have ostensibly improved this set would've been the presence of Pharaoh Sanders, but that's a minor quibble given how great everybody else is. Was surprised at the funkier moments of My Favorite Things

My download link didn’t work :( thanks for the YouTube!

hmmm anyone else plz let me know if there were issues, I won't be able to check those links for a while

LL I will get back to you via email

Hey folks, this link actually contains slightly better-sounding files (sorry, sleeve) - less vinyl crackle, etc. Only 320kbps MP3s though, not FLACs.

more likely that they used de-noising software since mine was ripped straight from brand new never-played vinyl on an MMF-5 turntable with a Goldring needle and zero processing :)

Where can I get hold of the shirt Stevie posted? It’s sick.

they worked for me, though i did have to copy+paste the link into the browser, as clicking through gmail errored out

and co-sign re: that shirt!

ahhhhhh ok -- i will try that!
thanks for letting me know
i just clicked through, failed, and gave up :-/

dudes
https://www.deformedworship.com/
i'm getting the latifah one too

ah, only Medium!

though i did just promptly buy the Sade in XL

OK I think I've gotten back to everyone except ILX user "Birds in Hell" - you gotta leave me your email in the webmail you send, ILX doesn't send it.

hmmm. shot a webmail (lol) out last night but let me try again. sorry in advance if I messed something up!

no I think I got back to you! it was a self-described lurker

hmm, I think that may have been someone else! I'm the one that just emailed you again last 30mins and signed w my govt name.

I described myself as a lurker! I've been trying to figure out how to check messages. Let me try again. Will be sure to include email...

I've been reading this site for something like ten years and still haven't really figured out how to do basic things.

You figured out how to post, and that is the most important thing of all :)

yes !

learning how to post
god
family
my fine colleagues at coldwell banker - great lakes region

persona 5

lol

please post on ILM more btw

i will, but only if you post on ILE more <3

ah, only Medium!

The medium is p small imo

Somebody just shared the 1972 bootleg on Dime.

& I see from the Discogs entry that is linked to from there that they are no longer allowing people to sell it through there.

that was me, and yes that's standard for any bootlegs on Discogs now

I missed the boat on the vinyl release, oh well.

has anybody heard this in full ?

https://img.discogs.com/RkgRKq9xYjqvy74lpHnZpcdUK0U=/fit-in/600x897/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-9053846-1483142151-7680.jpeg.jpg
Alice Coltrane ‎– Sala Kongresowa, Warsaw, 1987

one of two tracks i can find on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwzJ6_1HQXo

wow, great find!

it's one in a series of cassette bootlegs, some of which i'd imagine you'd enjoy:

https://www.discogs.com/label/928763-An%C3%B6kumena

heh 80% of those are ripped straight from Dimeadozen afaict

The Berkeley ’72 recording is on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTdFT-KFzLA

oh cool, thanks for sharing. sleeve, do you still have those FLACs ?

xp don't know what Dimeadozen is but the cassette "series" definitely strikes me as faux-boutique cassettes-are-cool-now nonsense (i.e. i'm certain those recordings had previously been shared on nerd blogs), even so i was pointed in the direction of certain things i hadn't heard so

this berkeley concert is blowing my mind

previously been shared on nerd blogs

this, pretty much, Dimeadozen is a well known torrent site for ROIOs

Berkeley concert is unbelievable, agreed - there's a reason it made the Wire's year-end list

those cassettes DO look cool though!!!

here's the audio for the warsaw concert: https://we.tl/t-YHsfVrLIBY
deeply offended by the "nerd blog" comment

thanks tylerw !!

There's a 2CD set coming out on Friday, Spiritual Eternal: The Complete Warner Bros. Studio Recordings, which includes three albums, Eternity, Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana, and Transcendence.

― grawlix (unperson), Monday, September 3, 2018 8:19 AM (one year ago)
Legit-wise, this is quite the gateway, or a gateway, though not as outward bound as some, but in terms of (for instance) Cali focus and range, musical per se and evocation: on headphones, especially, I'm climbing with her through the canyons, skies, chimes, ashram. This and the Luaka Bop are what I have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Hm0keXTeY the keyboard on this is incredible, although I can't say I like the vocals much

^one of the best songs ever

And yes the Rhodes on it is sublime, but I love the vocals too--they have a similar sedated, cultish choral vibe to the vocals on David Axelrod's Earth Rot.

I love the way the rhodes is recorded, it's so room-filling, larger than life

my favourite alice jam

I'm really enjoying _My East is Your West_ by Sarathy Korwar, which has two Coltrane songs on it: "Journey in Satchidanada" and "Earth" (from the record _The Elements_ that she did with Joe Henderson)

Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure _The Elements_ IS my most played Coltrane album; either that or _Universal Consciousness_.
Haven't listened to her in years though, which proves I'm a damn fool.

i love things about almost all her records, but i generally find Huntington Ashram Monastery and Journey in Satchidananda to be the most appropriate for the most listening situations (work music, cleaning, dinner party, etc). when it's a listening context where things can get more far out without disrupting my work or other people in the room, World Galaxy blows my mind

haha, yeah there are certain AC records that maybe aren't quite right for social situations.

thanks for the Sarathy Korwar tip, hadn't heard of it ...

Is jazz the music that changes the most when someone else enters the room in which you're listening?

And I'm sure the Korwar was discussed somewhere relatively recently. Anyway, this is a banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z_3t5un6sI

you mean the music itself is liable to change, or that the listener's subjective experience of it changes when someone else is present?

xp

because yeah, it's a little of both!

i can't have late 60's/70s sun ra on when someone else is present, because even if it's a calm and relatively melodic section, who knows what is going to happen at any moment. it can totally change character at any moment (which is part of the appeal!)

but also, i can listen to a pretty standard "jazz" album and think it's peaceful and non-distracting, but if someone else walks in they might fixate on all that ring-ting-tingling on the cymbal and want to change it immediately

Dave Alvin (yes, the Blasters/X/Flesh Eaters dude) has a new band called The Third Mind with ex-members of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, and the first track on their self-titled album is a fairly Dick Dale-ish version of "Journey In Satchidananda":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C6iXB911F4

Yes to all of that, Karl Malone! There's something about tuning into jazz that gets disrupted when another consciousness enters the room - it can go from something edgeless and erotic to all hips and elbows and tripping over one's own toes in seconds.

all that ring-ting-tingling on the cymbal

btw, that was a reference to a classic ilm thread that i can never seem to find, but i finally remembered!

What's with that constant cymbal tapping in jazz drumming?

for those who haven't read it, it starts with this classic pair of posts

This is one of the things I find annoying in the sound of a lot of jazz. Why did this become so common? Does anyone else find it annoying?
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, December 25, 2002 3:46 PM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

aaarrggghhh, yes, that endless ride cymbal tapping, it drives me NUTS. one of the biggest reasons that i hate jazz. oh, what, apart from it being crap and all. argh, the treble overpower of it all...

idk about all this -- i am going through the jazz unit in my music appreciation class rn and with this new online teaching situation, i don't get the chance to listen to jazz WITH my students and it is really bumming me tf out. my class is at least 40% less enjoyable for me and for them because we don't have the communal listening experience.

i used to play "journey..." as entry/class starting music all the time :( :( :(
i loved it when they would walk in and be like...what IS this?

oh yeah! journey is also my go-to jazz record to play for people who i suspect haven't heard it before - it never fails!

La Lachera, my music appreciation club has had a couple of online meetings using a combination of Zoom and an app called Jqbx that works with spotify. The drawback is that all users have to have spotify premium. It's worked pretty well so far though.

Ugh, La Lechera, apologies for spelling.

my go-to jazz record to play for people who i suspect haven't heard it before

who haven't heard jazz before ?

haha, no, i mean people i know who haven't heard alice coltrane before.

i guess that kind of sounds stupid and needs some unpacking! i think Journey is a really rare combination of strange, accessible, and good, so much so that if someone who likes music hasn't heard it i assume they'll love it. and they almost always do, it seems! it's like the undefeated champion

Thanks for the tip! Wish I could use it but my students aren’t all Spotify subscribers and this is a college class. I can’t ask them to do anything extra at this point :(

Also lots of people haven’t ever really heard jazz before — it’s not absurd!

I think lots of people have heard jazz but haven't listened to jazz, which is a different thing altogether.

Wow! Thanks for the Sarathy Korwar heads up.

Here's another version by Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra

https://matthewhalsall.bandcamp.com/track/journey-in-satchidananda

yeah that one is great ... !

xp @ KM yeah i figured, was just being silly, sorry.

a really rare combination of strange, accessible, and good

i agree !

beautiful 15 minute documentary from 1970

Alice Coltrane Black Journal segment

"The 16mm color film print is a short documentary made for a segment of National Education Television's Black Journal television program. The segment focuses on the life of Alice Coltrane and her children in the wake of the death of her husband, famed jazz magician John Coltrane. This film was shot sometime during 1970; three years after the death of John Coltrane."

yo, thanks for this!

this is incredible

it really is. amazing, thanks for sharing. that shot at the end of her waving goodbye in the yard with her kids, so beautiful.

does anyone know what she's referring to at the very end of the interview, about being within an inch of her death?

yessssss, goddamn, this should be a two-hour doc!

xp she is probably referring to this period:

In quick succession, Alice suffered the loss of both her husband and her half brother Ernest. Her account of her spiritual awakening between 1968 and 1970 in her self-published tract, Monument Eternal, is harrowing: her weight plunged from 118 to 95 pounds, and her family worried for her well-being. In her telling, her weight loss was not the result of grief and depression but due to extreme austerities undertaken for spiritual advancement. It leads to detached remembrances, like: “During an excruciating test to withstand heat, my right hand succumbed to a third-degree burn. After watching the flesh fall away and the nails turn black, it was all I could do to wrap the remaining flesh in a linen cloth.”

The rainbow-covered booklet makes no mention of her jazz music career, her husband, or her travels to India. Instead, she matter-of-factly details making a doctor recoil in horror at the sight of her blackened flesh, what occurs when one experiences supreme consciousness, the nuances of various astral planes, her ability to hear trees sing, and scaring the family dog with her astral projections. Amid this, her family feared for her sanity: “My relatives became extremely worried about my mental and physical health. Therefore they arranged for my return to their home for ‘care and rest.’” Later she adds: “Communicating with people was found to be like suffering judgment. In fact, it was almost impossible for me to dwell upon earthly matters, and equally impossible for me to bring the mind down to mundane thoughts and general conversations.”

(from https://pitchfork.com/features/from-the-pitchfork-review/10009-transfiguration-and-transcendence-the-music-of-alice-coltrane/)

alice was WAAAAAAAAY out there

xp thanks tyler!

love the faces on the kids when pharoah is going wild

i wonder if there's a full concert tape somewhere

man if they had footage of that entire show, it'd be on the level of Aretha's Amazing Grace concert doc ...

so great, thanks

SOOOOO GOOD!

Great taste in cars too.

Amazing. I met Rashied Ali a couple of times in the ‘90s and he *looks exactly the same in the film*!

Bless the Coltranes.

are there any available recordings of this two-bassist lineup?

also, the footage of her harp improv is :O

might be mistaken, but I think McBee and Garrison are both on the Carnegie Hall 71 recording.

xp bill wood AKA vishnu wood plays oud on "journey in satchidanda" but apart from that i don't know much about him or this lineup

nice doc! there's got to be more footage of that concert out there somewhere.

CAPTION
This 16mm film is a documentary segment focusing on the life of Alice Coltrane and her children in the wake of the death of her husband, famed jazz magician John Coltrane.

:)

thanks for this, Brad.

A photo I'd never seen before, of John and Alice in Japan:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbS0OuQXYAE_hQD.png

<3

Nice.

right click save as

#goals

https://img.discogs.com/CI6Hr_1-XmVhPLvIC8EcetPmd60=/fit-in/600x800/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-6599602-1422902810-8507.jpeg.jpg

the perfect prescription

Alice is great but I still wouldn’t mind that pill tbh

Impulse! is doing a big 60th anniversary self-celebration campaign and among other things, they're doing something pretty cool:

This summer, Impulse! Records will release a true rarity, Turiya Sings, by Alice Coltrane. Turiya Sings is a record of devotional chants recorded in the early 1980s at her ashram – the only place it was ever available. It is Alice Coltrane at peak spirituality and features her playing organ and chanting.

A version of this music was released on cassette in 1982, with synth and strings added, but never released after. For the first time ever, Turiya Sings will be released in its purest form – just organ and voice –as Alice’s son and reissue producer Ravi Coltrane has long wanted to do. This was the wish of her son and jazz musician Ravi Coltrane who heard the original tapes. Turiya Sings (Deluxe Edition) will feature both versions of this spiritual recording – both remixed, remastered and released for the first time digitally and physically on CD and LP.

I have two of her other devotional albums, Divine Songs and Infinite Chants, but not Turiya Sings, so I'm looking forward to checking that one out. I suspect I'll probably like the original version better than the stripped-down remix, but I definitely want to hear both.

oh hell yeah, it's the best one IMO

^^

and hell yeah, i can't wait for that. wonder if they'll make a cassette version as well?

oops, didn't mean to replicate the hell yeah! but i am pumped as well

Best album ever

This is literally the best news i have heard in 2021.

hell yeah

hell yeah

― That's not really my scene (I'm 41) (forksclovetofu), Thursday, February 11, 2021

This is literally the best news i have heard in 2021.

― stirmonster, Tuesday, February 9, 2021 6:18 PM

psyched

Any news on the Turiya Sings reissue? I can't find any info on it on the Impulse! homepage, and it isn't available as preorder on Amazon either. Has there been any release date set for it?

This Brooklyn Vegan piece has a list at the end which mentions:

Remixed, Reimagined Rarity from Alice Coltrane Turiya Sings Never Before Released Digitally or on LP, CD (Summer 2021)

Turiya Sings is so wonderful. And I don't think any of the tracks ended up on that Luaka Bop compilation, right?
I love her whammy bar organ playing - it seems to me it's like her doing the harp glissandi only proper glissandi... and so mournful.
I haven't got a spiritual bone in my body but this stuff is absolutely moving.

"(Summer 2021)" I have no idea what this means though. Not just Northern Hemisphere chauvinism, but in Australia we don't really have seasons. It's cold now, but I guess winter is... later.

I get PR emails from Impulse! regularly and haven't heard anything about this reissue yet.

Summer 2021 starts next week.

Major labels usually announce releases 6-8 weeks before street date so at this point you should expect it in late July or August at the earliest.

i am praying to all deities that this actually happens.

And now the announcement is out.

Never-before-released Alice Coltrane album of devotional music to be issued on Impulse!

Fans of spiritual jazz are in for a treat as Impulse! announce Kirtan: Turiya Sings, a never-before-released recording made by “the godmother of spiritual jazz”, Alice Coltrane, will now see the light of day. Recorded in 1981, yet never shared in this form publicly, Kirtan: Turiya Sings is a collection of nine devotional songs, featuring the never-before-heard combination of Coltrane’s voice and organ. Released on 16 July on Impulse! Records/UMe, the record issued as part of the legendary label’s 60th anniversary celebrations this year

Though known by many as the musical partner and wife of John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane is revered for her groundbreaking contributions to spiritual jazz with her legendary Impulse! recordings Journey in Satchidananda and Ptah, The El Daoud, among others. Throughout the 1970s, in addition to maintaining the busy schedule of a recording and touring artist, Alice Coltrane was immersing herself in Eastern philosophies, mythologies, and Vedic religious practices. By the early 1980s, she had become a guru and spiritual teacher and began to make music exclusively for her community at The Vedantic Center, northwest of Los Angeles.

The original recording of these songs, Turiya Sings, was released exclusively on cassette in 1982 for the students of the ashram. In addition to Alice’s voice and organ, the recording included synthesizers, strings, and sound effects. In 2004, Alice’s son and producer of this record, Ravi Coltrane, found mixes he’d never heard before of just Alice’s voice and her Wurlitzer organ. He knew this is what the world had to hear.

“In this setting I felt the greatest sense of her passion, devotion and exaltation in singing these songs in praise of the Supreme. In that moment, I knew people needed to hear Turiya Sings in this context.” Ravi continues, “as her son, growing up and hearing her playing these songs on the very same Wurlitzer you hear on this recording, I recognize this choice maintains the purity and essence of Alice’s musical and spiritual vision. In many ways, this new clarity brings these chants to an even higher place.”

The "single" is "Krishna Krishna":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn36bzFZeg4