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.

Norman Connors Love From The Sun: Buddah Records 1974

Norman Connors is best known out side of jazz for his R&B hit "You are my Starship" which went to #4 on the R&B chart in 1976.

Norman is also an exceptional drummer, and played with Sam Rivers on his albums Hues and Streams, as well as Pharoah Sanders' Village of the Pharaohs.

This album, Love From the Sun from 1974 features a pretty heavy duty jazz lineup.

 Herbie Hancock on electric piano, Eddie Henderson on trumpet, Carlos Garnett and Gary Bartz on saxophones, Buster Williams on bass, and Dee Dee Bridgewater on Vocals on a several tracks.

If you like the quiet storm style of funk that artist like Lonnie Liston Smith and Bennie Maupin laid to tape in the mid to late 70's you'll like Love from the Sun.

A perfect balance of modern jazz instrumental seriousness, and the more commercial element that jazz funk and rock brought to contemporary jazz. Certainly not an antiseptic sterile album by any means, think nice grooves and shifting rhythms.  Sometime they sit in the pocket to set a mood.

If you like the Hancock Mwandishi band, I think this Connors album would be worth picking up. If you are a mega Dee Dee Bridgewater fan you'll want this, quite frankly her voice is used as an instrument, it colors the tune to a great effect she appears on, damn near steals the show.

I like the sultry mood the music possesses, this mood I think is close to what you would identify as quiet storm, but there are plenty of modern jazz chops on this album too, it's not light-weight at all. 

Good luck trying to find Love From the Sun on CD, as of this writing it's only available on Vinyl and digital download

Alice Coltrane: An Underrated Jazz Composer and Instrumentalist

Why is Alice Coltrane ignored by the jazz critical establishment? I don't read too much praise for her being the ground breaker she actually was.

Those critics also at times belittle John Coltrane's "later" period, many times considering it as secondary, or unimportant in the grand scheme of his legacy.

This is a double slap to Alice's Coltane's legacy.  For some reason, she is pushed to the back seat as John Coltrane's wife, or  Ravi's mother in recent years, as if she wasn't as great as she was, like she only had a voice because of her husband?

Her Passing in January of 2007 was particularly tragic for the jazz community as she had recently began to record again, and as far as the media was concerned she was starting to step out of the gargantuan shadow of her late husband John Coltrane.

When I first got around to the John Coltrane catalog during my on going jazz  journey, I would read all these after thought statements: "Alice is no McCoy Tyner", or "Alice urged John into free jazz", they opine that she led to the dissolving of the quartet?

 They very much say some of the same sort of things that were said about Yoko Ono and the break up of the Beatles.

The first Alice Coltrane album I purchased was Universal Consciousness, not exactly a 4/4 shuffle blues album? Really pretty high brow spiritual influenced post bop/world music stuff "avant-garde astral jazz" if you will? I like a challenge, and still enjoy that album quite a bit.

I then turned to Ptah the El Daoud  with Joe Henderson and Pharaoh Sanders, a real gem of an album on impulse records. Alice also did a date fore Milestone Records with Joe Henderson called The Elements which is also a killer free bop style session.

Alice also appeared on several of her husbands mid to late 60's albums up until his death in 1967. These albums include Live Again at the Village Van Guard, Stellar Regions, and Expressions.

She also did some very controversial overdubbing on a mid 60's sessions release Infinity. They are not nearly the disaster I was lead to believe, very interesting string arrangements over top of free form blowing. The main upheaval comes from Jimmy Garrison's Bass parts being replaced on the 1966 sessions by Charlie Haden.  

I have a dozen vinyl copies of her records from the 60's and 70's, the above mentioned sessions as well as Huntington Ashram Monastery, Eternity, and Journey in Satchidananda, these are all very worthy of your jazz or world music collections.

You know, when I think about how satisfying Alice's music is as jazz, world music, and even
experimental improvised music, it's a cryin' shame she doesn't always get her due.

If you think Alice isn't a first rate instrumentalist, you need to check out the double live album on Warner Brothers called Transfiguration, an album has her going completely bananas on an organ; playing some very advanced improvised music in a trio setting, with Roy Haynes on drums, and Reggie Workman on bass, a fantastic album from 1976 at UCLA.

These records were all purchased online at one time or another, they are apart of my personal collection.

Vintage copies of most titles run from 20-50 bucks most times, reissues can be had a fairly reasonable prices too. check em' out. Watch out though, you might never get it out of your blood that vinyl.