Rating: NNN
The appearance of an Alice Coltrane recording on Impulse! – her first new album in 26 years – is good news, although fans of Coltrane’s early-70s sessions for Impulse! may want to put their celebration plans on hold. She’s clearly aiming to reconnect with that same spiritual flow, but it just doesn’t work without the swirling shimmer of her harp. Of course Coltrane’s got serious keyboard chops – she replaced McCoy Tyner in John Coltrane’s later ensembles – but the decision not to play harp, which really defines her sound, is baffling. And it’s sweet that saxophonist sons Ravi and Oran Coltrane join in, but they simply don’t stack up against past sidemen like Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson, something that’s readily apparent on the mediocre Blue Nile update. File alongside Mingus Plays Piano.
