Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson – Ptah, The El Daoud (Verve)

180-gram vinyl

Verve By Request Series — Monthly releases from Verve Label Group's jazz catalog!

Handpicked rarities and fan favorites include out-of-print titles and first-ever vinyl pressings

Verve Records/UMe and Third Man Records have partnered to resurrect the popular reissue series, Verve By Request, with a vinyl twist. Focusing on rare gems and fan-requested jazz albums from the Verve Label Group's stable of iconic labels, the series will offer two titles per month — each hand-picked by Verve and Third Man Records. The records will include both long-out-of-print titles from the vault as well as the first-ever vinyl pressings for albums released in the '90s and aughts that were only originally released on CD.

Albums will be newly remastered from original analog sources, when available, and pressed on 180-gram at Third Man Record Pressings in Detroit. The series launches Nov. 11, 2022, with a nod to Third Man's birthplace with two of Detroit's finest: Alice Coltrane's Ptah, the El Daoud (1970) and Roy Brook's long out-of-print Beat (1964).

After the death of her husband John Coltrane in 1967, Alice Coltrane continued to forward the musical and spiritual version they set out on together and started to release records on her own as composer and bandleader. The hypnotic Ptah, the El Daoud, was the fourth album to bear the pianist and harpist's name released between 1968-70, which also included her joint album, Cosmic Music, partially recorded with John a year before his death.

The transcendent Ptah, the El Daoud, recorded in the Coltrane home studio in 1970 and released later that year on Impulse! Records, features an all-star line-up on the four compositions, including Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson (both on tenor sax and alto flute). A masterpiece of spiritual jazz, the album's title track is an ode to the Egyptian God, Ptah (the El Daoud meaning "the beloved"), while many moments on the record can best be described by the Hindu word "Turiya," which Coltrane defines in the liner notes as "a state of consciousness — the high state of Nirvana, the goal of human life."

Musicians:
Alice Coltrane, harp (track 3), piano
Pharoah Sanders, tenor sax (tracks 1 & 4, right channel) and alto flute
Joe Henderson, tenor sax (tracks 1 & 4, left channel) and alto flute
Ron Cartter, bass
Ben Riley, drums