The elements

"Best New Reissue" - "The Elements is a sort of concept album-its four tracks are titled "Fire," "Air," "Water," and "Earth." The music is an unusual assemblage of open-ended blowing, loping funk, and drone, with a heavy emphasis on sounds and scales from North Africa, the Middle East, and India ... There are no earth-shattering solos, no star turns, every musician is there to create this primordial sound-world. This collective approach is something Alice Coltrane did particularly well. Spiritually-minded cosmic jazz came into its own at the turn of the '70s, and this is one of the best albums the scene produced".

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"Unlike most who tediously wove reed tapestries, Henderson sidesteps the "sheets of sound" torrents and plays pointedly shorter clusters and fragments-free-associating, with a barbed tone. Alice Coltrane supplies atmospheric harp and substantial solos, as well as broadly supportive piano work, while Charlie Haden's bass grounds the music. Spacey textures from Kenneth Nash's manifold percussion and Michael White's violin contrast with Henderson's resolute expression".