Huntington Ashram Monastery was recorded at the Home on May 14th 1969 with Rashied Ali on drums and Ron Carter on bass. Alice played harp on the title track, “Turiya,” and on “Paramahansa Lake,” and piano on the album’s other cuts. Picking up from Monastic Trio with the addition of Carter, Alice on this album explored the inner workings of her instruments and chord progressions to stunning depths.
Harp and bass move around each other with harmonic prowess associated with master musicians like Carter and Coltrane, while Ali provides a perfectly fitted backbone. The spiritual nature of the music is front and center. Alice’s liner notes explain, “ashram means ‘hermitage.’ It is sometimes spelled ‘ashrama.’ Of the many humanly-constructed ashrams and monasteries throughout the world, I feel that the real ‘ashrama’ is in your heart.”
