is Karma by Pharoah Sanders the best record ever?

i dunno, i guess i feel like there is more striving on izipho zam, laying something down that they stretched out on for karma without really expanding.

I have all the Impulse albums, and Izipho Zam is my favorite thing of Pharaoh's. It's the tuba, I think, that makes it better than Tauhid. Plus, Sharrock is more unfettered on IZ.

I've been trying to find the right words to talk about the shift from the howling squalls of late-60s free jazz to the blissed-out spirituality of early-70s Pharaoh, Alice, etc. I often feel, when listening to these albums, that my own militant atheism (it actually makes me angry when people I've previously considered intelligent mention their belief in a god in my presence) keeps me from fully appreciating them (gospel, too, though sacred steel guitar blows me away).

I'm also searching for more music in that spiritual-jazz vein - who else was doing that kind of stuff during those years, and what's in print on CD?

Maurice McIntyre - Humility In The Light of Creator!! (one of my favorite albums EVER)

Eddie Gale - "Black Rhythm Happening" & "Ghetto Music" (!!!)

Bill Cosby presents "Badfoot Brown & the Bunions Bradfor Funeral and Marching Band" (one of the most emotional albums ever. was a requiem for the just passed away Martin Luther King jR)

Alice Coltrane (Everything she ever released)
Leon Thomas solo albums
Albert Ayler
John Coltrane (of course)
Don Cherry
John Klemmer (late 60s early 70s)
Carlos Santana & John Mclaughlin "Love, Devotion, Surrender"
Gato Barbieri (Stuff on Flying Nun and his album with Dollar Brand)
Max Roach ("It's Time", "Freedom Now Suite", "Lift Every Voice")
Charles Lloyd
Art Ensemble of Chicago

Those Eddie Gale releases are the ultimate. sooooooo amazing!!

and dwight trible has a solo album out a few years ago. he sings just like leon thomas

Brown Rice

I also second Joe Henderson's Elements w/ Alice and Charlie Haden.

I guess I gotta try out this Iphizo Zam thing.

Session 4, 18.07.1971, Nice, France

Pharoah Sanders ts, ss, fl, tamb, perc
Lonnie Liston Smith p
Cecil McBee b
Jimmy Hopps dr
Lawrence Killian bongo

1.Jamil (Sanders) 22:55
2.Unknown title (sanders) 19:30
2.The Creator Has a Master Plan (Sanders-Thomas) 20:45
3.Let Us Go into the House of the Lord (Sanders) 25:13

Private tape

astral travelling, tell me of this one?

RIP

Seconded

RIP legend. I'm glad he got to have a last surge of attention from the Floating Points album.

oh shit

Promises is a great parting gift.

RIP

RIP - I'm grateful to have had the chance to see him. far too few jazz musicians of his generation even made it to old age

I get the impression that jazz critics have always been a bit sniffy about him for some reason- maybe it's the open spirituality or the association with coltrane going off the deep end (in their minds) or maybe it's the relative "conservatism" of his later work (which I want to spend more time with now) - but he deserved better. I'm glad he had a renaissance recently and I hope it encouaged some people to explore more of his music

I think I'll listen to "meditations" now

RIP

Absolutely vital to my getting into jazz in the first place, so he's always been a keystone for me

Good to know that Karma alumni Lonnie Liston Smith, Reggie Workman, Ron Carter, Richard Davis, James Spaulding and Billy Hart are still with us. RIP Freddie Waits, Julius Watkins and Leon Thomas.

A real special guy.

RIP

RIP, he was my favorite of all the modal jazz folks

I think this might be the best music ever recorded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4nAGtdkU88

in a very different vein his solo on "consequences" is bone chilling

it's definitely up there. sad day!

Floating Points: Pharoah...

Pharoah Sanders: Huh?

Floating Points: Were you asleep? I'm sorry...

Pharoah Sanders: No no... I was listening... and dreaming... and listening to music in my head...

Floating Points: Oh wow. Sorry.

Pharoah Sanders: Many times, people think I might be asleep... but in fact, I am just listening to music in my head. I'm always listening... to the sounds around me... and playing, in my mind... and sometimes I dream.

Floating Points: What were you dreaming about?

Pharoah Sanders: I'm on a ship. In the ocean. Bears coming around smoking cigars. The bears are singing, 'We have the music. We have what you're looking for.'

rip, hope he’s out there astral traveling with some cigar smoking bears who are giving him the music

shame taht 20 odd minute track from Montreux has gone still quite levitating in 1978. Seems to only be represented by a minute long clip.
Do enjoy his Impulse material and Coltrane sideman years.

RIP to a giant

Going to spin Karma and Thembi later. He will always be a legend.

"Ask the Ages" remains all time for me.

"Ask the Ages" remains all time for me.

GREAT album, I finally got a physical copy earlier this year. That and Coltrane's Ascension are probably my favorite albums featuring Sanders.

Was wondering when that one would come up. And thinking that the last two of those guys passed away this year.

just listened to Pharoah on India Navigation. side 2 skews towards a soul r’n’b vibe and is really really excellent

Currently jamming Wisdom Through Music and the title track is gorgeous

I’m listening to Thembi. First album I heard from him and still my favorite. Opening track alone “astral travelling” hits the spot.

Not his best I’d agree but a personal favorite.

I don't know if it's considered a great one or not but I really love Wisdom Through Music

RIP

Absolutely vital to my getting into jazz in the first place, so he's always been a keystone for me

― rob, Saturday, September 24, 2022 10:51 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah this. when i was figuring out what about jazz was interesting to me he was right in the center of it. his late 60s/early 70s aesthetic and overall vibe stands unmatched.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDjDCiTfUnU

omg

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah ye-ah.

Wow.

Sounds like a mash up but it's apparently real. There's a wikipedia entry on it mentioning a couple of other tracks from teh sessions with Leon Thomas on and a few other unexpected artists like Ornette coleman. Apparently it's about Louis Armstrong's last but one session and he was too weak to play trumpet but sang ok.
It's up on Spotify as the full original lp if you want to hear any more.

I discovered that Louis track via this excellent NTS show from a few years ago (maybe even posted on ILM?) thats an hourlong mashup of a bunch of different covers of "Creator", lots of great versions

Really nice appreciation of Pharoah by Kamasi Washington in the Guardian.

Pharoah reissued and streaming

a blessing

http://www.pharoahsanders.com/harvesttime/2023/9/14/its-harvest-time

i love this record but have to say that $55 for a "box set" (actually just a 2XLP with booklet) is highway robbery

otm

bet $5 that a year from now there will be a single-LP version

(for $30)

i have a bootleg repro that i'm happy with, and it sounds like they are posting photos and essays online so

same!

The bootleg's been so expensive for ages, so I'm happy to be able to pick up a copy. The live stuff's great too.

streaming on Bandcamp fwiw

cool origin story that I did not know:

This record’s origin story is as elusive as Pharoah himself. It was born out of a misunderstanding between Pharoah and the India Navigation producer Bob Cummins, and was recorded with a group of musicians so unlikely that they were never all in the same room again. There was the guitarist Tisziji Muñoz, who would go on to become a spiritual guru, the organist Clifton “Jiggs” Chase, who would leave jazz to take a job at Sugar Hill Records, where he would co-write and produce “The Message” for Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and Bedria Sanders, Pharoah’s wife at the time and a classically trained pianist, who would play the harmonium on this record even though she had never seen a harmonium before.

i'm glad it's back in print, and i see now that it's also available on CD or digitally, which is great.

i love this record but have to say that $55 for a "box set" (actually just a 2XLP with booklet) is highway robbery

I'm selling mine — mint, sealed — on Discogs for just $50 plus shipping. A bargain!

Is the cover photo not to your liking? 8)