Ptah the El Daoud

Artist: Alice Coltrane
Label: Grp Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Original recording remastered
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 011105020121
EAN: 0011105020121
ASIN: B000003N8S

Release Date: 1996-09-24

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Tracks:

Ptah, The El Daoud
Turiya And Ramakrishna
Blue Nile
Mantra

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Journey in Satchidananda
Universal Consciousness
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Customer Reviews:

Overrated.......2006-01-05

Contrary to what most seem to believe, Alice Coltrane has coasted into celebrity off of her husband's actual brilliance. Her piano playing is decent, but hardly impressive, and her jazz feel is far out of the pocket. Ptah the El Daoud is grounded in the ingenuity of the compositions, but it suffers from the musicianship, particularly from Alice Coltrane. Actually, the rest of the band is superb, Alice is the weak link. Her solos are meandering and uninteresting, and no matter how much I tried to enjoy them, I couldn't get into it. She has an odd concept behind her comping, which involves alot of chordal playing in the lower register, which might work in certain contexts, but is quite out of place here. She is also stuck on closed voicings which fails to realize the harmonic potential of the piano, and also limits her in terms of improvisation. She plays strictly modally, or petatonically, and rarely moves into arpeggiation or intervallic structures. This makes her playing predictable and constricted. She forgets the valuable lessons of cool jazz; to leave space. She has moved her harp playing technique to the piano, which is interesting, but ultimately ill-concieved. I suppose she's distinctive, which is an admirable trait, but that alone doesn't make a complete musician. John Coltrane changed music forever; Alice falls in the lower middle range as far as talent and ability are concerned. While I think she should be judged apart from her husband, her husband is responsible for her fame. While she started playing with the Miles Davis Quintet before she married John, her fame was entirely based on her marriage, and she didn't release a solo album until after his death. She has some talent in composition, but her playing ruins it for me.

An underrated classic.......2005-12-07

Another reviewer wrote that they preferred Alice Coltrane's music to John's, and while them's fighting words, this album provides the best imaginable support of that opinion. Even for a time as artistically fertile as the shift from the 60s to the 70s, this album would easily make my top 3 list alongside Bitches Brew (for the 3rd, who could decide between the innumerable awesome rock albums?)

Ptah, the El Daoud is an unstoppable 4-song trip best heard in a single sitting; while the tracks are formaly quite different, they share an emotional and spiritual - and I use that word quite rarely - base rivaled only by the most fantastic moments in John Coltrane, Mingus, and Roland Kirk. The greatest similarity between Ptah and Bitches Brew is that both albums consist only of such moments.

The opening track is a steady march carried by Ron Carter's memorable bass line; he doesn't get a solo, but his presence is crucial. Coltrane hits chords percusssively and sparely, creating a dark, dramatic tone. Sanders and Henderson each take a phenomenal solo; it's amazing how close two so different players sound here. They both shriek, squeal, and moan in a manner rarely heard in either straight or free jazz. Coltrane's solos always reveal to me her primary instrument, the harp; she travels up and down the keyboard with masterful fluidity, stopping to deliver literally painful stabs. While she was never the melodic and rhyhtmic virtuoso like, say, Herbie Hancock, she has a uniquely emotional approach to the instrument.

This is nowhere more effective than on the blues "Turiya and Ramakrishna", which rises and falls like a wailing human voice. There is no saxophone on the track, and the percussion is spare, leaving room for Coltrane's breathing, dynamic playing and a brilliantly subtle solo by Carter.

The next track changes the lineup considerably, with Coltrane using the harp in a way that makes it seem like the most obvious jazz instrument; Pharoah and Sanders switch to flutes, but you may not even notice, as they stay recognizable. This creates a lighter, more airy feel for the tune, but it carries forward both slowly and dizzily as the harp fills the space with streams of notes. It's the most obviously Eastern-influenced track on the album, and I caution you against dismissing it for that like I did.

The closing track is the darkest, most tense one. It's repetitive and, well, mantra-like. Sanders and Henderson weave through together, creating a discomforting, dizzy sound; it's a wonder that the track still grooves on. It's brought to a dramatic stop as Coltrane starts a long, minimalist solo that finally descends in an almost cinematic fashion; it's In A Silent Way's ominous, brooding sister.

While the performances here are absolutely flawless (and not easily traced to anything else), Alice Coltrane did more than put together a jazz dream lineup. Her writing is rarely formally complex, but she gets more out of it than one would think possible. Most of her "traditional" jazz tunes stay away from Brubeck- or Monk-like or Coleman-like experiments while sounding very much unlike anything your jazz radio station might every play.

Some wrote that they like Journey in Satchidananda better; it's a fine album, but Ptah is a more uniform, conceptual effort. Best to get them both, though.

P.S. On the soundtrack to Michelangelo Antonioni's classic movie Blow Up there is a Herbie Hancock track called The Hidden Camera; it sounds to me almost like an outtake from an Alice Coltrane album from this period.

Alice Coltrane finds her own voice.......2005-11-07

After a pair of exploratory albums that almost feel like testing the waters, Alice Coltrane entered the studio for the third time as a leader in January of 1970 to produce what would be her first really superb record, "Ptah, the El-Daoud".

Musically, Coltrane has taken her late husband's last bands as a starting point, albeit without the explosive extended improvisations, and moved on from there. The music is spritually informed, albeit with a decidingly Eastern bent to it, and features fierce and passionate playing. Coltrane (heard on piano and harp) is joined by reedmen Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Ben Riley. Carter and Riley prove to be a fantastic rhythm section-- both have a pedigree in adventerous but somewhat more straight-ahead bands-- Carter played with seemingly everyone but noteworthily in Miles Davis' mid-60s quintet and Riley performed extensively with Thelonious Monk. The two of them provide a solid foundation less bounded in free association and moreso in adventerous rhythmic playing. Henderson and Sanders make for interesting parallels of inside and out-- the former plays more inside but seems to be reaching, the latter more outside but seems to be restraining. Coltrane, for her part, provides remarkable frameworks, sticking wit the recipes of her work with John Coltrane but adding in a more overt influence of Monk and even to a lesser extent Bill Evans.

The album opens with hte extended title track-- Carter and Riley set up a deep groove, Coltrane throbs on piano, and the solos are superb-- Henderson is agile and exciting, Sanders is adventerous and explosive, filling your ears with his deep round sound, but both are trumped by the leader, who solos in a manner reminiscent of Herbie Hancock, and by Riley, who puts forth a remarkable inside-out solo. "Turiya and Ramakrishna" settles down a bit into a lovely piano ballad with the Sanders and Henderson playing bells, Coltrane's playing is fantastic with an odd (Monk-like?) use of space and Carter takes a simply fantastic, patient solo, where he really lets the performance come to him rather than forcing it. "Blue Nile", related to Coltrane's "Spirits", sinks into another deep Carter/Riley groove with Coltrane framing on harp and lovely alto flute playing from Henderson and Sanders. It's a rare treat to hear the latter on flute-- his playing isn't as technically able as Henderson, but he's remarkably inventive. The closing track, "Mantra", I find kind of a letdown though-- it's not bad, it just doesn't live up to the rest of the album. The theme is darkly stated by two tenors with Coltrane providing rather round framing before the piece moves into a pretty straight swing for soloing.

All in all, it's quite an album, well worth investigation-- it's not quite the masterpiece "Journey in Satchidananda" is, but it's quite a good record. Recommended.

Timeless classic.......2003-10-04

I rank Ptah the El Daoud up there with Kind Of Blue and A Love Supreme as perfect modal jazz recordings. This is quite amazing for a record made in 1970, when almost every major figure in the jazz world was going fusion.

Instead of following this trend, Alice Coltrane stuck to her guns and made this astonishing record with horn players Joe Henderson and Pharoah Sanders, bassist Ron Carter, and the underrated drummer Ben Riley.

The two horn players play tenors on two tracks, and alto flutes on a third. (They sit out on a fourth.) The twin-horn attack is rather like a right-brain/left-brain exercize. Henderson's approach is cerebral, while Pharoah Sanders is emotional. Pharoah's playing is surprisingly lyrical and restrained (two words I would never expect to associate with him!).

Alice Coltrane's piano playing is something like a gospel-tinged McCoy Tyner; she lacks some of Tyner's chops, but makes up for it with her overall conception. And unlike Tyner, she is a virtuoso harpist. The one harp/flute track ("Blue Nile") is a standout; it is ethereal, and ferocious all at the same time.

Highly, highly recommended!

great in virtually any mood.......2003-06-15

alice coltrane should feel seriously shortchanged. living unjustly in her late husbands shadow, she's created some genuinely brilliant jazz in the past. i'd even go so far as to deny popular opinion and claim shes the better of the coltranes. sure, john was impressive, but im sticking to my judgement on that one.

this album (and its not the only one of hers i can say this about) is perfect from start to finish. the tracks are just so rich and well balanced that you can put it on time after time and still get something from it. it never seems to stumble or wander off on any dead-end tangents at any point, and the whole thing just runs together brilliantly.

one of my favourite jazz records, but i have to admit there's something about the journey to satchidananda release of hers that makes me wonder if this is even my favorite of her efforts. you should take the time to listen to the samples of each release to get a feel for them, it'll be worth it.

not far behind the art ensemble of chicago, in my estimation, as one of the best musicians in jazz. give her a chance if you havent already.

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