Alice Coltrane - Turiyasangitananda, Glorious Chants, 1995

Avatar CD, 1995

1 nataraja
2 bhaja mana
3 journey to satchidananda
4 atma rama
5 rama ramaya - krishna krishnaya
6 hara siva

swamini turiyasangitananda (alice coltrane), keyboards/synth, arr
chorus of the sai anantam ashram
sairam iyer, lead vocal on 1, 3
sandhya sanjana, female vocal on 1, 4, 6
joshua, flute

"these chants are humbly commended into the lotus hands of bhagawan sri satya sai baba to his praise and glory."

if you're looking for alice coltrane's late period hidden jazz masterpiece, you won't find it here. in the mid-1990s she was deep into her life as a religious teacher, light years away from her musical explorations as john coltrane's widow; and she had sworn off secular recordings, not as yet ready for her brief and glorious comeback shortly before her passing. instead, this is a meditative album of devotional songs.

but just like alice coltrane went to far out planes of being to bring back amazing jazz--or literally communed with stravinsky's ghost to learn the art of arrangements for strings--here she goes to some far out plane to bring a distinctive presence to these chants.

i've heard some really nice kirtan albums recently: albums of peppy hindu chants that you can't help but sing along to; the bells and drums irresistibly pulling you in just like pop music does, but joyous and filled with spirit. but here turiyasangitanda, for that is what she went by then, mostly omits the bells and the drums for weird synthesizer noodling, sometimes almost soporific or cheesy, like a cheap sci-fi movie soundtrack, and sometimes howling like an air-raid siren, while the members of her ashram peacefully sing chanted devotional songs, sometimes joined in solo by a pair of singers from india. the songs are slow and long: this is not about musical virtuosity, and these are not jams and certainly no kind of jazz. this is about a state of being: there are highs and lows, some glorious peaks and some valleys where not much happens, like slow slow intakes and outtakes of rarified air. the production is seemingly amateur, which is oddly effecting, as though emphasizing not the presence of musicians but the diaphonous presence of spirit in the silent spaces between the almost muffled sounds.

this is certainly not the best music that alice coltrane ever recorded. but i take it as living proof that she had one foot in this world and one in another, bringing back some wordless secret message for us mere mortals. by the last number on this record, i hope you find, as i do everytime i listen to it, your heart filled with some profound and otherworldly joy.

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