Alice Coltrane brings a range of cultural influences to bear on this recording, more explicitly than in the work she did with her husband John towards the end of his life - with excellent results.
She features a number of instruments not normally associated with jazz: her own harp (in addition to her piano) which gives a whole new dimension to the sound - and was to be influential a generation later when Radiohead took the idea for the harp runs on "Motion Picture Soundtrack" from this album - as well as the traditional stringed instruments, the tamboura and the oud. These would probably have been unfamiliar to most Western listeners when the album first came out in 1970.
Yet the blend with the jazz instruments is seamless. This is established when the double bass and soprano sax join the tamboura on the title track, and remains so for the rest of the album. It certainly helps that Coltrane has with her musicians who are no strangers to innovation - Pharaoh Sanders, Charlie Haden, Cecil McBee - and here they are expanding their musical horizons even further.
What this definitely is not is musical tourism. It's driven by a strong spiritual belief system and musical integrity. The musicians may come from different traditions but in this instance their meeting was an inspired one.
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How does it compare to the artist's other releases
Outstanding
How does it rate alongside the competition
Outstanding
Cover / Inlay Design and Content
Good
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