Alice Coltrane: Journey In Satchidananda (Verve Acoustic Sounds series) [VERVE]

Why you'll love it

This Verve Acoustic Sounds series edition is a 180g stereo pressing in a gatefold jacket with an archival rice paper inner sleeve. AllMusic gave the album five stars, Pitchfork a perfect score, and Rolling Stone placed it in its 500 greatest albums of all time.

This edition

• Verve Acoustic Sounds series
• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Rice paper inner sleeve
• Stereo mix

About the album

Some records sound like they were made in a temple; this one was largely made at home. Alice Coltrane recorded four of these five pieces in her Dix Hills, New York studio in November 1970, a few years after losing her husband and while studying under Swami Satchidananda, whose name and teaching give the album its title.

Her harp ripples through the title track over Cecil McBee's hypnotic bass line and Tulsi's tanpura drone, with Pharoah Sanders' soprano saxophone and Rashied Ali's drums keeping it airborne. "Shiva-Loka" and "Stopover Bombay" draw on Indian music and her travels, "Something About John Coltrane" builds on her late husband's themes, and "Isis and Osiris," caught live at the Village Gate with Charlie Haden and Vishnu Wood on oud, reaches toward North Africa and the Middle East. Majid Shabazz adds bells and tambourine to the home sessions.

Rolling Stone noted its pull on everyone from Radiohead to Flying Lotus, her grandnephew. NPR called it a vision of universal healing, and we'd add that it's the most effective thing yet found for a Monday.

Also at Kops: more Alice Coltrane on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Impulse! / Verve (cat# B0036675-01), a reissue of the 1971 album.