Alice Coltrane - Ptah, The El Daoud (2022 Impulse! Gatefold LP, Third Man Pressing)

Alice Coltrane - Ptah, The El Daoud | Vinyl LP - 2022 Impulse! Verve By Request 180g Gatefold (B0036051-01, Sterling Sound mastering, Third Man Pressing)

• Recorded January 26, 1970 in the basement studio of the Coltrane home in Dix Hills, New York; Alice Coltrane's third solo album and her first to feature horns throughout; all four compositions are her own; produced by Ed Michel
• Pharoah Sanders on tenor and alto flute (right channel); Joe Henderson on tenor and alto flute (left channel); Ron Carter on bass; Ben Riley on drums; Alice Coltrane plays piano on three tracks and switches to harp on "Blue Nile"; Henderson appears by courtesy of Milestone Records
• A foundational record of spiritual jazz; Coltrane noted that "Joe Henderson is more on the intellectual side, while Pharoah is more abstract, more transcendental" — the contrast between the two tenors is the album's defining sound
• Verve By Request series, 2022 reissue; 180g; gatefold; mastered at Sterling Sound; pressed at Third Man Pressing, Detroit

Alice Coltrane recorded this in the basement of her home on Long Island on January 26, 1970 — three years after John Coltrane's death, while raising four children and continuing to perform. She had converted the space into a working studio, with acoustic baffling and professional equipment. W.L. Barneke engineered. Ed Michel produced. The session assembled Ron Carter on bass, Ben Riley on drums, and two tenor saxophonists whose approaches could hardly have been more different: Pharoah Sanders on the right channel, Joe Henderson on the left.

All four compositions are Coltrane's. The title track is named for Ptah, the Egyptian god of creators — "El Daoud" meaning "the beloved" in Arabic. "Turiya and Ramakrishna" takes both of Coltrane's spiritual references: "Turiya" was her own Sanskrit name, also meaning a state beyond ordinary consciousness; Ramakrishna was the 19th century Bengali mystic. "Blue Nile" is the track on which Coltrane moves from piano to harp and both Sanders and Henderson switch from tenor to alto flute. "Mantra" closes the album with horns working in unison over Coltrane's rolling piano.

The album was released September 1970 and reached No. 13 on the Billboard jazz charts by February 1971. This 2022 Verve By Request reissue was mastered at Sterling Sound and pressed at Third Man Pressing in Detroit.