| Ptah, the El Daoud | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | September 1970[1] | |||
| Recorded | January 26, 1970 | |||
| Studio | Alice Coltrane's home studio (Dix Hills, New York) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 46:03 | |||
| Label | Impulse! Records | |||
| Producer | Ed Michel | |||
| Alice Coltrane chronology | ||||
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Ptah, the El Daoud is the third solo album by American jazz pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane, released on Impulse! Records in September 1970. The album was recorded in the basement of her home in Dix Hills, New York, in a session on January 26, 1970.[2]
While Pharoah Sanders had played bass clarinet on one track on 1968's A Monastic Trio, this was Coltrane's first album to feature wind players more extensively, with Sanders and Joe Henderson playing tenor saxophone on two tracks and alto flute on "Blue Nile" (on which Coltrane also switches from piano to harp). Sanders is recorded on the right channel and Henderson on the left channel throughout. Coltrane noted that "Joe Henderson is more on the intellectual side, while Pharoah is more abstract, more transcendental."[3]
All of the compositions were written by Coltrane. The title track is named the Egyptian god Ptah, "El Daoud" meaning "the beloved" in Arabic. Turiya "was defined by Coltrane as "a state of consciousness — the high state of Nirvana, the goal of human life", while Ramakrishna was a 19th-century Bengali Hindu mystic; the name also denotes a movement founded by his disciples.[3]
Jim Evans designed the album's artwork.
- ^ "New Album Releases for October". Billboard. October 3, 1970. p. 53.
- ^ Enos, Morgan (December 30, 2020). "'Ptah, The El Daoud' At 50: How Alice Coltrane Straddled Heaven And Earth". Grammy Awards. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
- ^ a b Coltrane, Alice (1970). Ptah, the El Daoud (liner notes). Alice Coltrane. Impulse! Records. AS-9196.