Customer Reviews

Monastic Trio

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Alice really shines here as she is right up front on this recording on piano and harp. Some very nice modal sounds, alot of freedom from Pharoah. It just keeps on giving. You can listen many times and it always seems fresh. So much variety in composition. I also HIGHLY recommend Ptah, the El Daoud and Journey in Satchadanda, which I would buy first. This would be the third, and then Cosmic Music and well... I better stop there. I just really dig alot of these Alice Coltrane recordings.

1. Lord, Help Me To Be 7:30

2. The Sun 4:01

3. Ohnedaruth 7:49

4. Gospel Trane 6:44

5. I Want To See You 6:42

6. Lovely Sky Boat 6:51

7. Oceanic Beloved 4:18

8. Atomic Peace 5:53

9. Altruvista 6:55

Alice Coltrane, piano

Pharoah Sanders, tenor sax, bass clarinet, flute

Jimmy Garrison, bass

Ben Riley, drums (1-3)

Rashied Ali, drums (4-8)

This is Alice Coltrane's first album as a leader, made a year after her husband's death. Even though you can tell that she was still developing her own style at this point, it is still a great record. The first 3 songs are especially good, I think; this is probably because of the additon of Pharoah Sanders. Alice is great with a trio, but she had incredible chemistry with Pharoah.

"Lord, Help Me To Be" is just classic. I really like Jimmy Garrison's bass playing on this one. He may not have been as technically developed as other bass players of his time, but he could really swing, which is something that other bass players sometimes lacked. "The Sun" is wonderful, too. It is basically a 4 minute Alice Coltrane solo in free rhythm, colored by bells and sparse bass. Although Pharoah is listed here, he is barely audible, playing flute in the left channel. The drums are very quiet as well. "Ohnedaruth" is a chant that the last John Coltrane group used to perform. It features a rare Pharoah Sanders solo on bass clarinet!

"Gospel Trane" and "I Want To See You," a swinging freebop-ish tune and a ballad, repectively, are cool trio performances with Garrison and Rashied Ali. The next 3 songs are with the same trio, but Alice plays harp on them instead of piano. I love Alice's harp playing on Ptah The El Daoud and especially Journey In Satchidananda, but there is something different about it here. It is freer and looser. I didn't realize until listening to this what a modal instrument the harp is, not to mention beautiful and highly spiritual. The 3 harp songs may be difficult to enjoy at first, but they are very rewarding in time.

"Altruvista" is a solo piano piece that actually came from a session with the John Coltrane quintet. If anyone doubts Alice's virtuosity as a musician, they should hear this. The song seems to be based on wholetone scales, which are very difficult to master, but she runs up and down the keyboard with an amazing facility.

A Monastic Trio may not be as good as Ptah The El Daoud or Journey In Satchidanada, but it is definitely worth buying nevertheless. Check it out!

Alice Coltrane's first album was a stunner that has stood the test of time well. The album opens with the moving piece "Lord Help Me to Be" and Alice's beautiful, fluid piano work. Add in the unmistakable Pharoah Sanders and the music just gets better. "Lovely Sky Boat" adds harp to the roster of jazz instruments; Alice plays it better than anybody. Along with the other early albums

"Huntington Ashram Monastery" and "Ptah the El Daoud", "A Monastic Trio" should be in every jazz collection.

Alice is still woking within the sounds of John Coltrane's band sound here. i don't think of this as "free jazz" as some people have claimed. there are moments of free rythmic harmony, but the pieces are very structured and tight. maybe a little too tight. on future releases, Alice would really embrace the more exotic elements of her spirituality and her her music benefited from it greatly (in my opinion). "A Monastic Trio" remains a solid album and a worthy addition to any open minded jazz fan's collection.

"A Monastic Trio" is Alice Coltrane's debut album as a leader, recorded in two sessions in 1968 in the year following John Coltrane's death, and it finds her continuing the work of her husband.

Coltrane is heard on piano and harp on the record, and is joined by Pharoah Sanders on reeds on three cuts, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and either Ben Riley (the three pieces with Sanders) or Rashied Ali (the rest) on drums. Musically, it's in the same idiom as John Coltrane's later work, but a bit less dense and without the presence of John Coltrane's solo voice, the music tends to have a much lighter feel to it.

The three pieces from the session with Sanders, recorded in January of 1968, are all fairly dark-- "Lord, Help Me To Be" is a midtempo blues with a heavy swing and Sanders boiling on tenor sax (but somehow restrained) with Riley, fresh off a four year stint with Thelonious Monk, absolutely captivating on the drum kit. "The Sun" is a meditative piece, somewhat reminiscent of Sanders' opening motif to "The Creator Has a Masterplan", with Sanders nearly inaudible on flute, and "Ophnedaruth" is a bleak and mournful piece with Sanders on bass clarinet. To hear Sanders on this horn is a rare treat, he bubbles, burbles and cuts loose, testing the register of the instrument and falling a bit outside the piece, but with Coltrane's superlative accompaniment (certainly being the pianist for her late husband set her up to take on anyone), she was able to keep the piece coherent.

The second session, from June of the same year, is a bit less exciting-- three cuts find Coltrnae on piano and three on harp, with the last John Coltrane rhythm section reunited. Two of the piano pieces-- "Gospel Trane" and "Lovely Blue Sky", quite frankly sound like inferior versions of the material from the earlier session, with the same moody sound captured (although "Gospel Trane" is a bit more rhythmically inclined and Ali's solo is astonishing on it). "Altruvista" is a solo piano performance and finds another side of Coltrane's playing-- shades of Taylor and Monk come forth. It's a nice performance, but ultimately it's not as engaging as other stuff on the record. Of the three harp pieces, "Lovely Sky Boat" is the most satisfying, with Coltrane cascading and soaring and Garrison and Ali striking a tight groove. By and large the other two are not quite as exciting.

It's not a perfect debut, but the "A Monastic Trio" is well worth investigation. Those interested in exploring Alice Coltrane's catalog would probably do better to start with the downright superb "Jounrey in Satchidananda".

Its probably not fair to compare this to her later work, but it is lacking that quality that lifts Ptah and Journey to a higher realm. Not essential but worth having.

Excellent album! Mrs. Coltrane is in a world of her own!

I like Alice's subsequent work, but I found this album to be a drag. The music has no spark and the compositions are spare. I believe the musicians were still in mourning for John Coltrane; this is not their finest moment. On her next couple of albums Alice did move towards building on, and departing from, John's artistic vision.