Best Alice Coltrane Album

Boring choice, but Journey.

yeah, me too -- i love those first four albums a whole lot, but Journey is the peak. I like the later, orchestral kinda stuff, too, but I haven't listened to it nearly as much. Translinear Light has some pretty major high points, too -- shouldn't be overlooked.

journey's the easiest on the ears, but universal consciousness is a real achievement. exhausting to listen to but so rich + dense.

my dark horse favorite is the sweeping, cinematic world galaxy. is that still out of print?

OOP? i see copies all the time ... check ebay.

and yeah, i picked journey too, though "world galaxy" would be my runner up. i think you've really got all the really essential ones, Z S. "a monastic trio" is quite good too if you are feeling like an alice on impulse! completist (not a bad thing to be) and "lord of lords" is not bad though not essential. i have "eternity" / "transcendence" / "transfiguration" and never ever ever listen to them; i can see the self-realization fellowship from my window and so i never really feel like i need to actually hear people chanting their om nama shivayas and what not, even with alice at the helm.

if you need a direction to go in, why not check joe henderson's "the elements"?

i guess my main point is that nothing she did comes within a country mile of "ptah" / "journey" / "world galaxy" - though "universal consciousness" and "a monastic trio" come close.

i have all of those except HAM, RKNS and "translinear light" so i wouldn't mind hearing folks opinions on those

I meant OOP on CD. from what I've seen on ebay the vinyl still floats around and goes for decent money.

"universal consciousness" for me. at first those strings scared the shit out of me and almost couldn't bare to hear it but now I hear nothing but utter transcendent beauty through the whole thing, plus rashied ali is playing some of his best stuff on it.

i think you've really got all the really essential ones, Z S.

I was afraid someone would say that. I'm taking my sweet time with Alice, getting a new one every 6 months or so and really giving it a chance to digest before moving on to the next one. I used to think that nothing could ever top Journey in Satchidananda, but I've been really getting into World Galaxy lately. My gf says that it sounds like the kind of music they play in movies when some Westerner has moved to a strange land, struggled to understand it and adapt, and then emerges a decade later as a changed person.

if you need a direction to go in, why not check joe henderson's "the elements"?

I was hoping to get recommendations just like this when I started the thread. I will check it out ASAP.

LOL what yr gf says, that's appropriate because that's basically what happened to jon & alice, right?

yeah, more i think about, that's a really awesome way to describe "world galaxy"

itunes has the artist credit on "the elements" as "alice coltrane & joe henderson", btw

Is that what happened to John/Alice? I haven't read too much on their life together, which is why I'm hoping this thread will generate some links to enlightening sources (I realize there's this thing called to Google, but when people are really into an artist they can often point the way toward stuff that isn't easily findable)

Yeah, I checked out the allmusic entry on The Elements and saw Alice Coltrane, Joe Henderson and Charlie Haden. SOLD

they didn't "go east" anywhere but mentally, but yeah, that's the idea, that they got into the stuff during john's struggle w/ heroin and it really shaped everything they did ... if you're interested in that (v controversial) reading of trane's life, you can check out the (v controversial) john coltrane by bill cole, which i found to be a great read, though i see where the detractors are coming from in that it does try to place his entire 60s career in the context of his spirituality.

ha, it's funny that you were sold on charlie haden. my basic method of finding free / spiritual jazz albums to listen to was to search by bassist. you need to check everything from 1965 to 1975 that has either RON CARTER, richard davis, malachi favors, henry franklin, CHARLIE HADEN, dave holland, henry grimes, CECIL MCBEE, alan silva or REGGIE WORKMAN on it. (all caps for emphasis)

going with ptah, but I should maybe listen to more of her work before throwing my hat in the ring. Only know about four of those albums; mostly the early stuff.

I love her orchestral scores, the swirliness of them. If you're looking for more like that, also check out John Coltrane's Infinity album, I think the orchestra parts were posthumous and iirc quite controversial at the time, but it is one of my favorite JC albums.

There was also talk about this on this other ILM thread:
Let's talk about late 60s/early 70s freeish Afrocentric/spiritual/astral jazz ("fire music").

World Galaxy, Ptah, UC, and HAM are all really great, but Journey is probably my favorite album of this type ever made.

I gotta go for Universal Consciousness, "Hare Krishna" is one of the most beautiful tunes I've ever heard.

World Galaxy is definitely out of print, the CD copies I've seen on sale online cost about 50-70 dollars. I wish someone would reprint it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

the Alice Coltrane songs i've spent the most time with recently are "Paramahansa Lake" (off HAM) "Going Home" (off LoL) and "Los Caballos" (off Eternity). and because it remains wholly unmoored from her jazz background and makes me feel similarly disengaged from gravity/ reality, i voted Lord of Lords.

Voted Journey.

Lord of Lords has been my "go to" Alice album since scoring a copy for fifty cents at a library sale.

of the seven im most familiar with, here's how it shakes down:

1.World Galaxy (1971)
2.Lord of Lords (1973)
3.Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana (1976)
4.Universal Consciousness (1971)
5t.Journey in Satchidananda (1970)
5t.Eternity (1975)
7.Ptah the El Daoud (1970)

this is a very moment-to-moment list for me -- world galaxy will always be on top, but basically any of the others could be in any position. definitely one of my favorite artists of all time.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

pretty obvious ranking. but i should have voted for Transcendence since i played the Hare Krishna/gospel side of that album every day for a few months.

does sundar still post on ilx?

pretty sure he does but I forget the username

i don't know any of the late 70s stuff -- is it readily available? The stuff after Eternity, I mean ...

World Galaxy is definitely out of print, the CD copies I've seen on sale online cost about 50-70 dollars. I wish someone would reprint it.

― Tuomas,

even in japan? my copy is a JP import, which put it at like 25 bucks as opposed to 50.