Search - Alice Coltrane :: Universal Consciousness (Special Packaging)

Compelling Karma, Welcome If Short-Lived Reincarnation

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 06/25/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Verve is making this 1972 Impulse recording available as a short-run, limited-edition reissue expiring in May 2005. Whether it self-destructs at that time or is returned to the vaults for another thirty years, awaiting its next reincarnation, is unclear, but it's probably best to take no chances. This album sounds a lot better to me today than it would have at the time of its release. Scarcely 9 years had elapsed since I'd heard Alice McCleod playing in the Terry Gibbs Quartet opposite Coltrane's Quartet at Birdland, and her marriage to Coltrane and absorption by his increasingly mystical music struck me as abrupt and superficial. Moreover, the results bore not even a faint trace of the swinging, post-bop player who had served as a felicitous and provocative complementary voice to Terry's manic vibes.But after listening to this music and reading Alice's original liner notes, I'm inclined to think of her as a greater influence on Coltrane than vice versa. Hers is the theological mind, steeped in Hinduism and Indian mythology to a degree that makes John along with Lennon, T. S. Eliot, and perhaps Ravi himself look like tyros. Her descriptions of these compositions and their devotional inspiration makes me want to go back and study the Ramayana, Upanishads, and Vedic Hymns not to mention chant a few Hare Krishnas (30 million are required to experience "Mukti," but perhaps considerably less will lead to some knowledge of Om and apprehension of Shantih).I've listened to this album at least a dozen times and still can't seem to get a handle on the music. Alice's analog organ seems at once incongruous, anachronistic and cutting edge; at the same time her exotic harp takes the edge off, making this quite accessible music. Jimmy Garrison's bass provides pretty much the same drone-like support that was its primary function in the original Coltrane Quartet. Jack DeJohnette, who's never impressed me as a piano trio trap drummer, is in his element here as a tone colorist and energy catalyst. But the album also owes a huge debt to Ornette Coleman, whose orchestral transcriptions of Alice's musical ideas are at once accessible and third-stream.This is hypnotic, enchanting, inexhaustible music, further evidence that all of the recent propaganda we've been hearing about Ronald Reagan leading us out of some supposed 1970's cultural morass is revisionist history at its worst."

Oh Alice

J. Holmes | yokohama, japan | 09/20/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Alice's unwavering and adventerous spirit is breathtaking on this album. her compositions are unique and dazzling. her instrumental use is refined and beautiful. this album can be frighteningly intense at times, but it swells over with radiant joy and life. a true rare gem of an album and one that deserves limitless play in every open minded jazz fan's household."