Spiritual jazz (or astral jazz)[1] is a sub-genre of jazz that originated in the United States during the 1960s. The genre is hard to characterize musically but draws from free, avant-garde and modal jazz and thematically focuses on transcendence and spirituality. John Coltrane's 1965 album A Love Supreme is considered landmark in the genre.

Origins

Pharoah Sanders in 1981.

Critics usually associate spiritual jazz with the 1960s but the beginnings of the genre can be traced to the 1940s and 1950s in works such as Black, Brown and Beige by Duke Ellington, Zodiac Suite by Mary Lou Williams, and Jazz at the Vespers by George Lewis.

During the 1960s in the United States, the civil rights movement was occurring, causing societal change and political movements. As a result, African-American people gained more freedom to celebrate their culture and to express themselves religiously. This led to a desire to push the conventions of jazz, with some artists choosing to search for transcendence and spirituality in their music.

John Coltrane's 1965 album A Love Supreme is generally considered the genesis of spiritual jazz though Coltrane can be heard developing the sound on the song "Spiritual" recorded four years earlier. Treblezine wrote "Spiritual jazz begins, essentially, with John Coltrane," while Pitchfork wrote "This musical exploration [of spirituality] was epitomized by tenor saxophonist John Coltrane". A Love Supreme and other works by John Coltrane inspired other jazz musicians to create music searching for transcendence. For example, Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry were considered to have taken inspiration from Coltrane's spiritual works.

After John Coltrane's death in 1967, his wife Alice Coltrane and Sanders—both who had previously played with Coltrane—were some of the first to continue the sound of the genre. Coltrane's 1971 album Journey in Satchidananda combined spiritual jazz with influences from Hindustani classical music, after her journey into spirituality with help from Swami Satchidananda. Journey in Satchidananda used ragas, harps, sitars, and ouds to achieve its sound. Pharoah Sanders took inspiration from Arabic, Indian, and Afro-Cuban music to create early spiritual jazz albums, including Tauhid (1967) and Karma

The Rascals - Sattva (1968)

If Once Upon a Dream was supposed to be the Rascals' Sgt Pepper's, then Sattva is Within Without You. Although George's song never broke into a wonderful soul section in the middle of his tune. Kind of reminds me of Traffic's fist LP. Very cool stuff, and the Rascals were actually playing the sitar, tamboura and tabla.

All the colors melting softly at my feet

The Sitarmakers Family of India have been making Tanpura string instruments almost 2 Centuries!

They could've modernized, instead they continue creating not only beautiful musical instruments, but beautiful pieces of Art.

If it was a piece of paper, I would tear it. If it was a bottle, I would break it, if it was a wall, I would tear it down - But it is my heart.

Mahmoud Darwish

brian jones, 1966

via @annaxsitar

fav genre of photo fr (george harrison with sitar).

hare krishna

wowee

lord have MERCYYY

George Harrison · 25/02/43

“His first guitar,

the one his mother bought for him for £3, lay in a cupboard for about three months, forgotten. 'There was a screw holding the neck to the box part,' says George. 'In trying to play it, I took it off and couldn't get it back on again. So I put it away in the cupboard. Then one day I remembered about it again and got Pete to fix it for me.'”

the eel deal!

sitar

long-necked stringed Indian musical instrument, 1845, from Hindi sitar, from Persian sitar "three-stringed," from si "three" + tar "string"

zither

stringed musical instrument, 1850, from German Zither, from Old High German zitara, from Latin cithara, from Greek kithara

kithara

an ancient Greek stringed instrument, which could be considered a forerunner of the guitar, according to Beekes, acquired from Pre-Greek. Probably ultimately derived from or at least related to Proto-Hurro-Urartian *kinnar (“lyre, harp”)

guitar

from Spanish guitarra, from Arabic قِيثَارَة‎ (qīṯāra), from Latin cithara, from Ancient Greek κιθάρα (kithára)

Aksar 'Sitaroon' ko bhool jate hai woh

Jinko mukammal 'Chand' ho jata hai

~ 🪕~