''Illuminations'' is a 1974 collaboration between

Alice Coltrane Alice Coltrane (' McLeod; August 27, 1937January 12, 2007), also known by her adopted Sanskrit name Turiyasangitananda, was an American jazz musician and composer, and in her later years a swamini. An accomplished pianist and one of the few har ...

and

Carlos Santana Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán (; born July 20, 1947) is an American guitarist who rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band Santana, which pioneered a fusion of Rock and roll and Latin American jazz. Its sound featured ...

(under their Indian names "Turiya" and "Devadip", respectively). Saxophonist/flautist Jules Broussard, keyboardist

Tom Coster Tom Coster (born August 21, 1941) is an American keyboardist, composer, and longtime backing musician for Carlos Santana. Early years Detroit-born and San Francisco-raised, Coster played piano and accordion as a youth, continuing his studies ...

, drummer

Jack DeJohnette Jack DeJohnette (born August 9, 1942) is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. Known for his extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians including Charles Lloyd, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie, ...

, percussionist

Armando Peraza Armando Peraza (May 30, 1924 – April 14, 2014) was a Latin jazz percussionist and a member of the rock band Santana. Peraza played congas, bongos, and timbales. Biography Early life Born in Lawton Batista, Havana, Cuba in 1924 (although the b ...

and bassist

Dave Holland David “Dave” Holland (born 1 October 1946) is an English jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States for over 40 years. His extensive discography r ...

also contributed to the album. Alice Coltrane performs on harp, piano, and Wurlitzer electric organ and arranged and conducted the string section. Carlos Santana plays his electric guitar in a more minimal style than usual, utilizing feedback, sustain and simple melodic statements to create atmosphere and lend space to the other instruments. The album is all instrumental, with lengthy solos from most of the participants. The string section introduction to "Angel of Air" was sampled by the Cinematic Orchestra for use on the track "All That You Give", which appeared on their 2002 album '' Every Day''. This is the first of three Santana albums (the others being ''

Oneness Oneness may refer to: Economy * Law of one price (LoP), an economic concept which posits that "a good must sell for the same price in all locations". Religious philosophy * Oneness Pentecostalism, a movement of nontrinitarian denominations * Nond ...

'' and ''

The Swing of Delight ''The Swing of Delight'' is a 1980 double album by Carlos Santana. It was released under his temporary Sanskrit name ''Devadip'' Carlos Santana, given to him by Sri Chinmoy. It peaked at #65 on the charts. On the album, Santana is joined by mu ...

'') to be released under his

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

name ''Devadip'', given to him by guru

Sri Chinmoy Chinmoy Kumar Ghose (27 August 1931 – 11 October 2007), better known as Sri Chinmoy, was an Indian spiritual leader who taught meditation in the West after moving to New York City in 1964. The usual 2 channel

stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

version of the album was also released in 1974 in a 4 channel

quadraphonic Quadraphonic (or quadrophonic and sometimes quadrasonic) sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for th ...

version. In 2017, ''Illuminations'' was reissued by the Dutton Vocalion label in the UK in

Super Audio CD Super Audio CD (SACD) is an optical disc format for audio storage introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips Electronics and intended to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD) format. The SACD format allows multiple aud ...

format containing both the stereo and quadraphonic mixes. Santana biographer Marc Shapiro stated that the guitarist was "once again the child" during the recording session, plying Coltrane with requests for stories about her late husband. Santana later recalled: "the music really took me farther away from that classic Santana sound than almost any other recording—farther away but closer to where my heart was."

Remix

In 2001,

Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, w ...

, responsible for remixes of albums by

Bob Marley Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements o ...

and

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

, mixed and remixed excerpts of Santana's ''

Illuminations Illuminations may refer to: Shows and festivals * IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth, a nightly fireworks show currently at Epcot at Walt Disney World Resort *'' IllumiNations'', original nightly firework show at Epcot at Walt Disney World Resor ...

'' and ''

Love Devotion Surrender ''Love Devotion Surrender'' is an album released in 1973 by guitarists Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin (musician), John McLaughlin, with the backing of their respective bands, Santana (band), Santana and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. The album was ...

'', on an album called ''Divine Light''.

Reception

In a review for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

, William Ruhlmann wrote: "Columbia Records could not have been pleased at Santana's determined drift into esoteric jazz: ''Illuminations'' was the first of the nine Santana-related albums so far released in the U.S. not to go gold." A reviewer for ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' called the album "a totally cosmic record," and stated that it "should turn a lot of people onto this form of music." Saxon Baird of

Red Bull Music Academy The Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) is a world-traveling series of music workshops and festivals that was founded in 1998 by Red Bull GmbH. The main five-week event is held in a different city each year. The public portion of its program is a festiv ...

noted that the album is "as strange and fascinating as the pairing" of Coltrane and Santana would suggest, and called "Angel of Sunlight" the album's centerpiece, commenting: "The nearly 15-minute, feverish free-jazz number is heavily indebted to John Coltrane's late output... But if much of the saxophonist's late work felt like a musician in search, Santana and Alice Coltrane here are also musicians journeying in the same style." Writing for ''

All About Jazz ''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...

'', Rob Caldwell described ''Illuminations'' as "quite a bold album," and stated that it is "all about drama and grandiosity." He remarked: "At times bordering on New Age, it's much too adventurous to be pigeonholed as such and just when it seems to get too syrupy or cosmic, it veers into free jazz." A writer for

Aquarium Drunkard ''Aquarium Drunkard'' is an online music magazine launched in 2005 by Justin Gage, and based in Los Angeles, California. The name "Aquarium Drunkard" is a play on a lyric by the band Wilco. The website was originally created by Gage to share mu ...

commented: "Despite his instantly recognizable tone and reputation for wailing, Santana's playing is minimal and humble, stripped to its melodic core. Here, he sets a new benchmark for electric guitar in a spiritual jazz context, while also providing the soaring counterpoint to Alice Coltrane's lush orchestrations." Buckley Mayfield of Jive Time Records remarked that the album "is all about transmitting blazing beams of enlightenment into listeners' minds," and stated that ''Illuminations'' and ''Love Devotion Surrender'' "stand as antana'screative peaks." A reviewer for Overgrown Path wrote: "It is, of course, very easy to dismiss this album as New Age whimsy. But that denies the primordial and mystical power of sound to transform, and it is elitist and myopic to contend that this transformative power is the exclusive property of the masterworks of the Western classical music."

Track listing

Side one

#"Guru Sri Chinmoy Aphorism" (S. Chinmoy) - 1:11 #"Angel of Air / Angel of Water" (Coster-Santana) - 9:55 #"Bliss: the Eternal Now" (A. Coltrane) - 5:33

Side two

#"Angel of Sunlight" (Coster-Santana) - 14:43 #"Illuminations" (Coster-Santana) - 4:18

Charts

Personnel

- piano, harp, Wurlitzer electric organ (B1) *

- electric guitar *

- acoustic bass (A2, B1) *

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

- acoustic bass, bass guitar *

- drums & percussion (A2, B1) *

- electric piano, Hammond B-3 organ (A2, B1-2) * Jules Broussard - soprano saxophone, alto flute (A2, B1) * Phil Brown - tanpura (B1) *

- conga drums (B1) * Phil Ford - tablas (B1) * String section arranged and conducted by Alice Coltrane * Murray Adler - violin, concert master Violins: * Ron Folsom * Bill Henderson * Nathan Kaproff * Gordon Marron * Paul Shure * Charles Veal Cellos: * Anne Goodman * Glenn Grab * Jackie Lustgarten * Fred Seykora Violas: * Marilyn Baker * Myer Bello * Rollice Dale * Alan Harshman * Myra Kestenbaum * David Schwartz

References

{{Authority control 1974 albums Alice Coltrane albums Carlos Santana albums Columbia Records albums Albums produced by Carlos Santana