What is the best spiritual jazz album of all time?

Spiritual jazz reached for the divine through sound — Coltrane's transcendent A Love Supreme, Pharoah Sanders's cosmic Karma, Alice Coltrane's meditative harps. These albums are sacred music for the secular age.

1

A Love Supreme

John Coltrane's 1964 four-part suite — the foundational spiritual jazz album.

2

Karma

Pharoah Sanders's 1969 album with 'The Creator Has a Master Plan' — transcendent spiritual jazz.

3

Journey in Satchidananda

Alice Coltrane's 1971 meditative masterwork — harp and sax as devotional music.

4

Spiritual Unity

Albert Ayler's 1964 ESP-Disk recording — raw spiritual free jazz.

5

Meditations

John Coltrane's 1966 Impulse album — the deepest expression of his spiritual vision.

6

Tauhid

Pharoah Sanders's 1967 debut as leader — Arabic modes and meditative saxophone.

7

Universal Consciousness

Alice Coltrane's 1971 psychedelic string-quartet-meets-jazz experiment.

8

Thembi

Pharoah Sanders's 1971 Impulse album — mystical Africana and spiritual jazz.

9

Eastern Sounds

Yusef Lateef's 1961 album — Arabic/African modes meet Western jazz vocabulary.

10

Space Is the Place

Sun Ra's 1973 cosmic manifesto — Afrofuturist spiritual jazz at its most iconic.

11

Promises

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & LSO's 2021 album — 21st-century spiritual jazz reborn.

12

Black Unity

Pharoah Sanders's 1971 long-form spiritual jazz masterwork — a 37-minute meditation.