ALICE COLTRANE Vinyl & CDs

Review: Highly revered jazz innovator and famous spiritualist Alice Coltrane recorded her 1972 album Lord of Lords in California and released it originally on Impulse! Records. It is a slow-building affair that was the last in a trio of hugely orchestral works that took jazz to grand new heights. It hums with cosmic energy and has a throb of organic sound at its core with cinematic, widescreen atmosphere that place you right at the centre of the American's musical universe. It is dense, too, with 25 instruments all featuring and vying for attention with violins, cellos and violas all working in harmony.

Review: The fifth solo album from one of the boldest travellers in jazz, Universal Consciousness was a breakthrough for Alice Coltrane and surely one of the most important LPs in the genre. Casting off limitations and heading into brilliant bursts of dissonance and enlightenment at every turn, it's a visceral listen led by Coltrane herself on harp and organ. There are moments of melodious calm beyond the dissonant drama of tracks like 'Battle At Armageddon' - by comparison 'Oh Allah' has a sweet and tender spirit even if Coltrane's nimble organ playing still borders on the frenetic. The clarity of vision and openness to new possibilities in music are staggering and unmatched, even 50 years on.

Review: Deeper into Alice Coltrane's catalogue - beyond 'Journey In Satchidananda' or 'Lord Of Lords' - comes this classic bit with cosmic bandleader Pharoah Sanders and saxophonist visionary Joe Henderson. 'Ptah The El Daoud' was initially recorded and released in 1970, and now gets a reissue via Audio Clarity, whose aim with this one is to bring the listener a perfect replica of the original. Made in the basement of her then house in Long Island, New York, this is a light, clarinetting affair; with the track 'Turiya & Ramakrishna' sonically opining Coltrane's Vedantic Hindu views on consciousness, and the seminal 'Blue Nile' nailing sinister serialist moods in their trilling, dark saxophone bits. Of note is that Joe Henderson was recorded on the left channel throughout, while Sanders was on the right; Coltrane noted this decision was intentional, with the two artists' disciplines being so different as to represent the opposing sides of the brain.