Alice Coltrane
Huntington Ashram Monastery
Album · Jazz · 1969
Alice Coltrane’s second album is a tender, exploratory trio session with bassist Ron Carter and drummer Rashied Ali that injects modal playing with a strong blues sensibility. Three expansive pieces for harp suggest a burgeoning pursuit of a meditative practice: The nuanced rapport between her cascading arpeggios and Carter’s spectral improvisations reach an apotheosis on “Turiya”. The final three pieces feature piano and cleave toward a more explicit jazz sound, whether through the brisk melodic cycling of “Via Sivanandagar” or the soul-steeped “Jaya Jaya Rama”.