Patrice Rushen – Before the Dawn

Bargain bin spiritual jazz isn’t something that pops up very often and rarely is it actually good… Illuminations features probably one of the strangest musical pairings we’ve come across on a major label release with latin-blues-rock legend Carlos “Devadip” Santana meeting the great swamini Alice “Turiya” Coltrane with support from David Holland, Billy Cobham, and Jack DeJohnette. The album is a total cosmic trip and sounds a lot like an Alice Coltrane record, but with a bit more of a fusion flavor and Santana’s signature shred. By this time in 1974, Santana was deep in Eastern mysticism studying under guru Sri Chinmoy and taking on the name “Devadip.” The new direction was unsurprisingly a bit of a shock for fans, and the album would be the first of nine Santana-related albums released in the U.S. not to go gold.
Recommended – Full Listen
A1 Guru Sri Chinmoy Aphorism
A2 Angel Of Air
A3 Angel Of Water
A4 Bliss: The Eternal Now
B1 Angel Of Sunlight
B2 Illuminations
Art Direction, Illustration [Cover] – Michael Wood (6)
Bass – James Bond* (tracks: A1 to A3, B2)
Cello – Anne Goodman (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Fred Seykora* (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Glenn Grab (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Jackie Lustgarten* (tracks: A1 to A3, B2)
Cover [Album Cover] – Retina Circus
Design [Sleeve] – Cynthia Shyvers
Engineer – George Engfer, Glen Kolotkin
Photography By – Steve Bruce (2)
Photography By [Liner] – Herb Green*
Producer – Devadip Carlos Santana*, Tom Coster
Producer, Arranged By [Strings], Conductor [Strings] – Turiya Alice Coltrane*
Viola – Alan Harshman* (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), David Schwartz (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Marilyn Baker (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Myer Bello (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Myra Kestenbaum (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Rollice Dale (tracks: A1 to A3, B2)
Violin – Charles Veal* (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Gordon Marron (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Murray Adler (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Nathan Kaproff (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Paul Shure (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Ron Folsom* (tracks: A1 to A3, B2), Bill Henderson* (tracks: A1 to A3, B2)