Psychedelic Free Jazz: Pharoah Sanders' Karma

Pharoah Sanders was born on October 13, 1940 under the name Ferrell Sanders in Little Rock Arkansas.

 Karma is an album that found a big audience on college radio in the late 60's, with their willingness to play full length album tracks.

Miles Davis also benefited from this young open minded audience with his jazz rock masterpiece Bitches Brew.

Karma is one of my favorite all time jazz albums period, Vocalist Leon Thomas who is also an acquired taste with his nasally yodeling approach, is the perfect foil for Sanders fiery balls to the wall playing.

Karma  is basically one track, "The Creator has a Master Plan":  The track is a 32 minute opus with a smooth droning bass line and Thomas' friendly yodeling. When Sanders's upper register howls and grunts enter, they prove to be very startling, yet ultimately exhilarating.

 This is a powerful album with a hippie, almost psychedelic feel to it, yet it is a free jazz album. Creator is a long journey, offering mellow meditation and contemplation, peaceful really until... Enter Pharoah Sanders.

 Pharoah reminds you that this is indeed the late 60's, Dr.King and the Kennedy's have been killed and those with non white skin haven't exactly received their piece of the American dream, let alone finding the land of milk and honey.

The album is breathtaking, and a must for all jazz and free jazz collectors. I have always felt that Karma was an answer of sorts, or a least a next act to John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme". Both albums, are concept album, both have an opening fan fare, they both have the droning bass and then the powerful saxophone explosions.

Both A Love Supreme and Karma offer a hope for a better path to follow, yet don't sugar coat the indignity man has done to himself, with the way we treat each other.

Karma certainly is influenced by the Coltrane Masterpiece in any event.

You can get Karma the LP, like the pictured vinyl copy for around 20 dollars if you shop around, a pretty desirable record 45 year later.

The New Wave in Jazz LP: Live at the Village Gate March 28, 1965

One of the joke punchlines of 1960's free jazz was: " They call it free jazz because nobody is paying to hear it". It was the New Wave In Jazz and it was not accepted by everyone.

Yes free jazz is a micro niche inside the niche of jazz. Those hardy souls who dare enter the realm of free jazz can gain many rewards, though it is an acquired taste.

 Impulse Records probably came the closest to actually making free jazz a viable commercial music.

John Coltrane's A Love Supreme sold 500,000 records by 1970, a mind boggling number, typically only Miles Davis could command those kinds of sales with a instrumental modern jazz record.

Impulse to their credit, allowed artists like Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and Archie Shepp incredible latitude to create new and mostly noncommercial music.

Some of the best albums from this era were from Sanders, who combined many world music elements along with a new age almost hippie culture aesthetic.  His 1969 masterpiece Karma is a perfect example with vocalist Leon Thomas yodeling his was to free jazz immortality.

The pictured vinyl record is a concert album featuring the young studs of the free jazz movement, Grachan Moncur III, Shepp, Sanders, and underrated trumpeter Charles Tolliver and saxophonist Albert
Ayler.

 I am almost ashamed to admit it I paid through the nose for this one, it was one of the last Coltrane albums I wanted for my collection, $80 was steep.

But the near mint vinyl original does sound pretty sweet sonically. The CD remastered releases adds 23 minutes of music to the album from Grachan Moncur III.  Most people who can't get past the abrasive sound within free jazz, can't get to a point where they hear the blues. I know I hear it.

When I hear Albert Ayler I hear a return to the basics, a sound that goes way back to the fields possibly. Funny how the new thing sounds in many ways like the old thing.

John Coltrane: Kulu Se Mama, 1967 Vinyl on Impulse Records

John Coltrane's Kulu Se Mama is one of those later period Coltrane albums that really seems to draw a line between the critics.

 Many would not accept anything after A Love Supreme, and frankly I don't think they could get past anything with an over blow or atonal sound.

Actually Kulu Se Mama turns out to be a bit of a world music album along with some fine free elements.

The title track composed by the vocalist Juno Lewis is the meat of the album and happens to be one of the first Coltrane tracks the caught my ear. The pulsating, and droning percussion of Lewis, and eventually the wild sax of Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders drives this music to very exhilarating heights.

The title track sounds modern and contemporary by today's standards, the world music vibes would fit right in on a college student's iPod.

The other 2 tracks on the original Impulse vinyl are "Vigil" and "Welcome", they are classic quartet tracks, and show the quartet pushing the boundaries of inside outside jazz.


The pictured vinyl record is an original stereo copy, and sounds so good, I spun this one twice.

 These original Impulse albums are rising fast in price, this copy in top condition will set you back 75-100 bucks, second pressings though can be had at very reasonable prices.

I was lucky enough to find this copy to add to my own collection at a local Cincinnati record shop several years ago. near mint vinyl for 15 bucks sure was a welcome deal.

Archie Shepp Four for Trane on Vinyl

Archie Shepp's Four for Trane is one of those free jazz records that is an easy jumping of point for straight ahead jazz fans.

 I always thought Four for Trane owed more to Ornette Coleman than John Coltrane.

The group interplay just reminds me of that type of jazz Coleman brought to jazz 8 years earlier, but the advances here are Shepp's husky tone, and the reworkings of 4 tracks Coltrane originally did for Atlantic Records.

"Syeeda's Song Flute"is the highlight of the album in my mind.  I love the blues gospel rawness of the track, very advanced playing but clearly more rooted in tradition than one would think given the reputation of the new thing movement.

"Mr. Symms" and "Cousin Mary" get fresh make overs, you will recognize the compositions though, I keep thinking back to that Ornette Coltrane quartet influence,  it is there.

The lone Shepp number here is the seriously felt "Rufus, Swung His Face at Last to the Wind, Then His Neck Snapped" This track seems to fit in well with the Coltrane tracks, It also sort of solidifies the album as a brand new work, separate from John Coltrane.

I always liked Archie Shepp's tenor sax tone, sort of the Ben Webster of free jazz. Other musicians of note are Alan Shorter on trumpet, Reggie Workman on bass, John Tchicai on Alto, and Roswell Rudd on trombone.

This pictured vinyl copy I won in an auction, for 12 bucks, it is not an original pressing, likely a second press, late 60's. In any event, still a fantastic sounding record with much more warmth than the CD can muster.

The ultra cool cover is also nice to have in its original 12 inch form.

John Coltrane's Posthumously Released Masterpiece Interstellar Space: (1974)

Interstellar Space is a fascinating set of duet recordings between John Coltrane and drummer Rashied Ali that were released 7 years after Coltrane's death in 1974.

What really makes these recordings so valuable is Coltrane's modern technique on tenor, and Ali's drums for that matter. This is music that 45 years later still sound like it was recorded 100 years into the future.

Since I am not a saxophonist nor a drummer, I can only judge this music by the mood it evokes. Interstellar Space is easily one of the most stirring jazz recordings I have ever heard.

 Coltrane's playing is from another world, perhaps John was in touch with the forces that would soon claim him, as he would be gone but a few months later? I still have no idea how drummer Ali was able to go toe to toe on this music with Trane.

I get the feeling when listening to the sheer earnestness of the playing that Coltrane had no where else to go, I listen to this music, and I say, how could you advance this music beyond where you are? Could the tenor sax be pushed beyond this music?

Had Coltrane lived, it would have been interesting to see what he was playing during the 70's, would he have gone the rock fusion route? Imagine if Trane and Miles Davis got together on those Osaka Japan concerts from 1975? Maybe he could have played soprano in a fusion band?

I know guys like David Murray, Anthony Braxton, and David S. Ware have developed this style and reworked it inside out, but have they advanced it?

Is interstellar Space my favorite Trane album? Well,  I have really grown to love it over the years. I would say A love Supreme, Giant Steps, Ascension, and Africa Brass are my favorite Studio Albums along with Interstellar space. The Village Vanguard live sessions are right there as well, but nothing in all of Coltrane's discography quite sounds like this album.

Hyperbole aside, I realize there are those that just can't get past the atonal sounds and really couldn't grasp the "over blowing" as the detractors will say. Believe me, there is much more to this music than that, any saxophonist or drummer needs to hear this album, if only for the virtuoso playing.

When Interstellar Space was originally released in 1974, "Leo" and "Jupiter Variation" were not apart of the record. Those 2 tracks were released in 1978 as the album Jupiter Variation.

Personally I believe the 2000 CD release to be the best remastering I have heard, and all of the music is in one Place too.

I still think the vinyl has a warmer sound, especially Coltrane, but the bass drum from Ali is less Muddy and the overall sound is pretty crisp, I would say that 2000 CD and 74' vinyl is a push.

In closing, I truly believe this recording is one of Coltrane's masterpieces. I wonder if Rashied Ali had a sense of satisfaction that he matched wits with the master on his last great recording? That fact, that he did stand toe to toe with Trane is the real secret of Interstellar Space.

John Coltrane/ Alice Coltrane: Cosmic Music.

Cosmic Music is an album that is seriously overlooked in the Coltrane catalog, mainly because of the Alice Coltrane and John Coltrane divide of the album.

After all, we are talking about just over 20 minutes of John, and the other 14 minutes or so, his wife Alice's first 2 recordings laid to tape at Impulse.

I can't find anything wrong with the 2 Alice tracks, "Lord Help Me Be" and "The Sun" these tracks were issued as bonus tracks for her Impulse album Monastic Trio reissue.

 The 2 longer John Coltrane tracks are "Reverend King" and "Manifestation".

 These tracks were recorded right after the departure of McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones, and have the freer style. Drummer Rashied Ali is an all together different drummer than Elvin Jones, Ali's not as powerful, but he shades and accents in different ways, he is more subtle than Jones.

Alice is an underrated player, very bluesy, and I am talking about a stripped down Otis Spann piano Blues. Tyner was a Bud Powell disciple, I don't hear an ounce of Bud Powell in Alice's playing.

Sometimes I feel Jazz, and John Coltrane fans in particular have a Yoko Ono complex about Alice, (As if Alice broke up the classic quartet or something?)

 Many denigrate her work with Impulse and Warner Brothers, this is unfortunate of course, as every damn one of her impulses, and most of the other Warner Brothers albums are not only worth a listen, a few are stone classics....see Ptah The El Daoud and Joe Henderson's The Elements for proof. She basically invented the sub-genre of astral jazz.

Alice's brand of astral jazz, or space jazz if you will, is a unique sound, that combines many

Eastern styles along with blues and African music. The 2 John Coltrane tracks are a real forerunner to that style, a looser free jazz style with a Modal back drop.

The music is both relaxing and stirring at the same time. For me, that is a hallmark of the so called space/astral jazz.

 Tenor man Pharoah Sanders has made a living out of this style of music, Sanders also plays on Cosmic Music, He also delivers his first recorded piccolo solo on "Manifestation".

There has been plenty of confusion with the John Coltrane tracks on Cosmic Music: Rumors have persisted that these are abbreviated performance, and 15 to 20 minutes could be out there somewhere?

 I have a vinyl copy (pictured), and the entire length is only about 34 minutes, finally a new reissue is available with a tad cleaner sound, especially on bass, it's less muddy now.