Alice Coltrane performs on harp, piano, and Wurlitzer electric organ and arranged and conducted the string section. Carlos Santana plays his electric guitar in a more minimal style than usual, utilizing feedback, sustain and simple melodic statements to create atmosphere and lend space to the other instruments. The album is all instrumental, with lengthy solos from most of the participants.[2][3][4]
The string section introduction to "Angel of Air" was sampled by the Cinematic Orchestra for use on the track "All That You Give", which appeared on their 2002 album Every Day.[5][6] This is the first of three Santana albums (the others being Oneness and The Swing of Delight) to be released under his Sanskrit name Devadip, given to him by guru Sri Chinmoy.[7]
The usual 2 channel stereo version of the album was also released in 1974 in a 4 channel quadraphonic version.[8] In 2017, Illuminations was reissued by the Dutton Vocalion label in the UK in Super Audio CD format containing both the stereo and quadraphonic mixes.[9][10]
Santana biographer Marc Shapiro stated that the guitarist was "once again the child" during the recording session, plying Coltrane with requests for stories about her late husband.[11] Santana later recalled: "the music really took me farther away from that classic Santana sound than almost any other recording—farther away but closer to where my heart was."[12]
In a review for AllMusic, William Ruhlmann wrote: "Columbia Records could not have been pleased at Santana's determined drift into esoteric jazz: Illuminations was the first of the nine Santana-related albums so far released in the U.S. not to go gold."[2]
A reviewer for Billboard called the album "a totally cosmic record," and stated that it "should turn a lot of people onto this form of music."[18]
Saxon Baird of Red Bull Music Academy noted that the album is "as strange and fascinating as the pairing" of Coltrane and Santana would suggest, and called "Angel of Sunlight" the album's centerpiece, commenting: "The nearly 15-minute, feverish free-jazz number is heavily indebted to John Coltrane's late output... But if much of the saxophonist's late work felt like a musician in search, Santana and Alice Coltrane here are also musicians journeying in the same style."[19]
Writing for All About Jazz, Rob Caldwell described Illuminations as "quite a bold album," and stated that it is "all about drama and grandiosity." He remarked: "At times bordering on New Age, it's much too adventurous to be pigeonholed as such and just when it seems to get too syrupy or cosmic, it veers into free jazz."[7]
A writer for Aquarium Drunkard commented: "Despite his instantly recognizable tone and reputation for wailing, Santana's playing is minimal and humble, stripped to its melodic core. Here, he sets a new benchmark for electric guitar in a spiritual jazz context, while also providing the soaring counterpoint to Alice Coltrane's lush orchestrations."[20]
Buckley Mayfield of Jive Time Records remarked that the album "is all about transmitting blazing beams of enlightenment into listeners' minds," and stated that Illuminations and Love Devotion Surrender "stand as [Santana's] creative peaks."[21]
A reviewer for Overgrown Path wrote: "It is, of course, very easy to dismiss this album as New Age whimsy. But that denies the primordial and mystical power of sound to transform, and it is elitist and myopic to contend that this transformative power is the exclusive property of the masterworks of the Western classical music."[8]
Track listing
Side one
"Guru Sri Chinmoy Aphorism" (S. Chinmoy) - 1:11
"Angel of Air / Angel of Water" (Coster-Santana) - 9:55
"Bliss: the Eternal Now" (A. Coltrane) - 5:33
Side two
"Angel of Sunlight" (Coster-Santana) - 14:43
"Illuminations" (Coster-Santana) - 4:18
Personnel
Alice Coltrane - piano, harp, Wurlitzer electric organ (B1)
