Released

Carlos Santana was a devotee of Indian guru Sri Chinmoy for a decade, and that spiritual journey was a deep influence on his most abstruse, jazz-fusion-oriented albums, including this 1974 collaboration with Alice Coltrane. Chinmoy even delivers an invocation at the beginning. The music is otherwise entirely instrumental, performed by a group that includes Coltrane on piano, harp, and Wurlitzer electric organ (she also wrote string arrangements, and conducted the players), Jules Broussard on flute and soprano sax, Tom Coster on keyboards, Dave Holland on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and Armando Peraza on congas. Santana’s playing is extremely restrained, with almost no shredding of the type heard on contemporaneous albums like Welcome, Love Devotion Surrender, and the live Lotus; he holds long sustained notes often, and leaves plenty of room for the others to create a kind of gently swelling atmosphere that’s ultimately an extremely meditative take on fusion.

Phil Freeman

Suggestions
Utica Box cover

Utica Box

Dan Weiss
Ours cover

Ours

Thumbscrew
Love cover

Love

Wildflower
Off the End cover

Off the End

Brandon Ross
Connect cover

Connect

Charles Tolliver
Salutes Bessie Smith cover

Salutes Bessie Smith

Amina Claudine Myers
Live Volume V cover

Live Volume V

Fred Anderson
Flood cover

Flood

Herbie Hancock
Turning Point cover

Turning Point

Lonnie Smith