MetaChat - sunday jazz

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02 April 2006

sunday jazz This week's selection comes from Alice Coltrane's 1970 album, "Ptah, the El Daoud". Harp, flutes, bass, drums...transcendant. →[More:]

It is perhaps my favorite personal jazz listening quirk that I fell in love with Alice Coltrane on harp long before I ever really heard anything by her late husband.

Blue Nile is the third track on the album, and features Alice Coltrane on harp, Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson on alto flutes, Ron Carter on bass, and Ben Riley on drums.

Enjoy your afternoon!

post by: jann at: 13:11 | 4 comments

I just discovered that album this year, and I totally love it. Thank you!

posted by matildaben 02 April | 13:50

Wow. How have I managed to live this long without hearing this? Wow. I couldn't have imagined what a harp would sound like in a jazz context; it's amazing. She uses it sometimes percussively and harmonically like a keyboard but then will make it sweep and swirl like a horn, or even a whole horn section. Thank you for this introduction. I'll have to get the whole album.

posted by timefactor 02 April | 16:23

I'm so glad you liked it, timefactor.

You might also want to take a listen to the cut "For Turiya" off of Charlie Haden's "Closeness" Duets. It's just him and her, harp and bass, and it is stunning, in my opinion. I wish I had a copy so I could post it here, but I keep giving that cd away as a present rather than buying for myself.

posted by jann 02 April | 16:38

As a side note, a while back I put up the Huntington Ashram Monastary on my blog, because it's out of print.
The rest of the links are long expired, but here's a re-up of the title track.
It's part of the trio of albums that concludes with Ptah (the second of the trilogy), which encompasses A Monastic Trio (natch), HAM and PED.
Great stuff, overlooked too long.
Huntington Ashram Monastary.

posted by klangklangston 02 April | 16:41

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