Eamon Blog

Today's Shelf Pull: Alice Coltrane, Quietly Rearranging the Room

Alice Coltrane's A Monastic Trio is on the shelf today: a 2024 LP reissue for the jazz listener who knows quiet is not the same thing as polite.

Some records enter the room without raising their voice and still manage to move the furniture.

This is one of those.

Alice Coltrane's A Monastic Trio is not a record that grabs your sleeve and starts explaining itself in the doorway. It waits. That is part of the charm, and also part of the danger. Give it half a chance and the room begins to change shape around it.

There is a certain kind of jazz record that gets described as meditative, which can sometimes mean nobody knew what else to say after the cymbals got quiet.