Alice Coltrane - The Ecstatic Music of Turiyasangitananda

The Guardian 60

(Luaka Bop)

The spiritually questing output of the late Alice Coltrane, wife of sax genius John, was for many years too way out even for hardened jazzniks. These days, her albums are feted. This compilation draws from her later years when she led a Californian ashram and issued her music on cassettes for the faithful. The mood is prayerful and contemplative, the music a mix of synth drones, Krishna-style chants and Coltrane’s poised, yearning vocals. There are echoes of her earlier cosmic jazz on Er Ra, a hymn to the Egyptian sun god, but the themes are mostly Vedic, focused by Coltrane’s lovely, transcendent singing.