Alice Coltrane began the year 1970 recording this album at home, in the house she’d shared with her husband John until his death in 1967. She’d finish it with another masterwork, Journey In Satchidananda. Joe Henderson is in the left channel, Pharoah Sanders in the right, providing an ideal contrast between intellectualism and fervid abstraction. Bassist Ron Carter and drummer Ben Riley lay down a steady, calming groove that anchors Coltrane’s piano explorations, which have a post-gospel feel and a deep inner melancholy.

– Phil Freeman