Recorded in 1968 and intended as a tribute to her late husband, Alice Coltrane is supported in her first solo outing by Pharoah Sanders, Jimmy Garrison and Rashied Ali — all members of John Coltrane’s last quintet. While initial reviews to the album were lukewarm upon release, looking at it in the context of her larger body of work, A Monastic Trio serves as a delightful foreshadowing of what was to come. This Verve By Request title is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Third Man in Detroit.
As the late Amiri Baraka writes, "'I Want to See You' is a monastic piano concerto. With echoes of Europe ..., it has a solemnity and majesty to it.... Yes, monastic is the word. The piano broods in its earth imagination."