Huntington Ashram Monastery

Huntington Ashram Monastery is the second solo album by Alice Coltrane. It was recorded in May 1969 at the Coltrane home studios in Dix Hills, New York, and was initially released later that year by John Coltrane Records, which was absorbed by Impulse! Records. On the album, Coltrane is heard on harp and piano, and is joined by bassist Ron Carter and drummer Rashied Ali.[1][2][3][4]

Huntington Ashram Monastery
Studio album by
Alice Coltrane
Released1969
Recorded14 May 1969
StudioColtrane home studios, Dix Hills, New York
GenrePost-bop, avant-garde jazz
Length35:59
LabelImpulse! Records
ProducerAlice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane chronology
A Monastic Trio
(1968)		 Huntington Ashram Monastery
(1969)		 Ptah, the El Daoud
(1970)

In 2011, Impulse! reissued the album, along with World Galaxy, as part of a compilation titled Huntington Ashram Monastery/World Galaxy.[5][6]

Reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]

The AllMusic review awarded the album 4 stars.[1] Thom Jurek noted Coltrane's "majestically meditative harp" on the first half of the album, and remarked that her piano playing on the second half "bring[s] the free jazz component into focus."[7]

Regarding the pieces featuring harp, Chris M. Slawecki of All About Jazz wrote that they "pivot their internal (meditative) and external (exploratory) faces upon the fulcrum of Carter's repetitive, throbbing bass, even though their swirling movements and rhythms, especially from Coltrane's harp, sound static, nearly floating." He stated that, on the works with piano, the instrument's "less heavenly, more temporal sound seems to root them in more earthly styles," and noted that "the spiritual overtones, and multiplicity and sheer volume of her notes" invite comparison with McCoy Tyner.[8] AAJ's Chris May called the recording a "beautiful, sumptuous album," and wrote that, for the most part, it "suggests rather than delivers astral jazz," noting that "the root of the music is straight-ahead."[4]

Author Max Brzezinski singled out "Turiya" for praise, and stated that it "produces mesmeric effects." He commented: "It suspends the listener in a cloud of lush textures, as each instrumentalist begins pursuing their own slow tempos, improvising until they find a shared sense of time... 'Turiya' doesn't develop in the traditional sense so much as it experiments with endless variations on a theme."[9]

Track listing

All compositions by Alice Coltrane

  1. "Huntington Ashram Monastery" – 5:36
  2. "Turiya" – 4:22
  3. "Paramahansa Lake" – 4:37
  4. "Via Sivanandagar" – 6:09
  5. "IHS" ("I Have Suffered") – 8:50
  6. "Jaya Jaya Rama" – 6:25

Personnel

References
  1. "Alice Coltrane: Huntington Ashram Monastery". AllMusic. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  2. "Alice Coltrane - Huntington Ashram Monastery". Jazz Music Archives. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  3. "Albums from the Home". The John & Alice Coltrane Home. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  4. May, Chris (October 27, 2011). "Alice Coltrane: The Flowering Of Astral Jazz". All About Jazz. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  5. Jurek, Thom. "Alice Coltrane: Huntington Ashram Monastery/World Galaxy". AllMusic. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  6. "Alice Coltrane - Huntington Ashram Monastery/World Galaxy". Jazz Music Archives. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  7. Jurek, Thom. "Alice Coltrane: Huntington Ashram Monastery/World Galaxy". AllMusic. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  8. Slawecki, Chris M. (December 18, 2012). "Alice Coltrane: : Huntington Ashram Monastery / World Galaxy". All About Jazz. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  9. Brzezinski, Max (2020). Vinyl Age: A Guide to Record Collecting Now. Running Press.
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