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Alice Coltrane: Ptah The El Daoud (Impulse AS9196)

Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971

I MIGHT WELL purchase this album before any other recorded in the past year. Alice Coltrane has developed and matured her music into a statement of astounding beauty and power, at once thoroughly universal and uniquely feminine. Further, she is now almost alone in venturing directly along the lines of exploration initiated by her late husband, John. While Shepp, Sanders and the late Albert Ayler have turned towards either rhythm and blues (most perceptible in Ayler's latest works) or vocal choruses (which I suspect is a harkening back to those blues roots), Mrs. Coltrane moves ever onward, ever outward.

Total word count of piece: 691

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