Name: Journey In Satchidananda
Brand: Alice Coltrane

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

IMP12282

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

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Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

U.K. Import

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Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2022-04-01

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Lasgo

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

11105122825

Total Cap

9999

Artist

Alice Coltrane

Genre US

Jazz

Label US

Impulse

Alice Coltrane (née McLeod; August 27, 1937 – January 12, 2007) was an American jazz musician and composer. She was an accomplished pianist and one of the few harpists in the history of jazz. Coltrane recorded many albums as a bandleader, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s for Impulse! and other record labels. Known for her spiritual jazz style, her music had a wide influence both within and outside the world of jazz.

In addition to her musical career, Coltrane dedicated herself to religious education. She founded the Vedantic Center in 1975 and later established the Shanti Anantam Ashram in California in 1983, where she served as spiritual director. During this time, she recorded several albums of Hindu devotional songs before returning to jazz in the 2000s.

Coltrane's journey into music began at Cass Technical High School in Detroit where she learned to play the harp under Velma Froude's guidance. Her talent on this instrument would become a defining aspect of her unique sound.

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Alice Coltrane's landmark Journey to Satchidananda reveals just how far the pianist and widow of John Coltrane had come in the three years after his death. The compositions here are wildly open and droning figures built on whole tones and minor modes. And while it's true that one can definitely hear her late husband's influence on this music, she wouldn't have had it any other way.

Pharoah Sanders' playing on the title cut, "Shiva-Loka," and "Isis and Osiris" (which also features the Vishnu Wood on oud and Charlie Haden on bass) is gloriously restrained and melodic. Coltrane's harp playing, too, is an element of tonal expansion as much as it is a modal and melodic device. With a tamboura player, Cecil McBee on bass, Rashied Ali on drums, and Majid Shabazz on bells and tambourine, tracks such as "Stopover Bombay" and the D-minor, modally drenched "Something About John Coltrane" become an exercise in truly Eastern blues improvisation. Sanders plays soprano exclusively, and the interplay between it and Coltrane's piano and harp is mesmerizing. With the drone factor supplied either by the tamboura or the oud, the elongation of line and extended duration of intervallic exploration is wondrous. The depths to which these blues are played reveal their roots in African antiquity more fully than any jazz or blues music on record, a tenet that exists today, decades after the fact. One last note, the "Isis and Osiris" track, which was recorded live at the Village Gate, features some of the most intense bass and drum interplay -- as it exists between Haden and Ali -- in the history of vanguard jazz. Truly, this is a remarkable album, and necessary for anyone interested in the development of modal and experimental jazz. It's also remarkably accessible.

Journey In Satchidananda

Music US

Discover Journey In Satchidananda by Alice Coltrane on Impulse. Available in CD format. A landmark album in modal and experimental jazz, featuring mesmerizing interplay and Eastern blues improvisation.