Karma (Pharoah Sanders album)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Karma
Studio album by
Pharoah Sanders
ReleasedMay 1969
RecordedFebruary 14 & 19, 1969
StudioRCA, New York City
GenreAvant-garde jazz, spiritual jazz, free jazz[1]
Length37:30
LabelImpulse! Records
ProducerBob Thiele
Pharoah Sanders chronology
Tauhid
(1967) 		Karma
(1969) 		Jewels of Thought
(1969)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings
[3]
Uncut9/10[4]

Karma is a jazz recording by the American tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, released in May 1969 on the Impulse! label, with catalog number AS 9181. A pioneering work of the spiritual jazz style, it has become Sanders' most popular and critically acclaimed album.

Background

The social and political upheavals of the 1960s have been cited as a major factor in the emergence of a new stylistic trend in jazz, with a very different emphasis to the forms of the music which emerged earlier. Many of the artists involved in the making of this new music, variously called "

pygmies
.

Album information

Karma is Sanders' third recording as a leader, and is among a number of spiritually themed albums the Impulse! record label released in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Although it is followed by the brief "Colors", the album's main piece is the 32-minute-long "The Creator Has a Master Plan", co-composed by Sanders with vocalist

Richard Davis; drummer Billy Hart
, and percussionist Nathaniel Bettis. While later recorded versions of the tune, some of which featured Sanders and Thomas, became shorter and more lyrical, this original contains extended free instrumental sections, particularly the third section, where the saxophonist demonstrates some of the techniques which build his distinctive sound, including a split-reed technique, overblowing, and multiphonics, which give a screeching sound.

On the whole, however, this was quite laid-back and accessible for a free-jazz record (compared to, say, Coltrane's 1966 album

hip hop artists attests to its continuing popular status. The influence of the "spiritual jazz" movement, and Sanders' involvement in particular, can be seen in Sarah Webster Fabio
's 1976 lyrics to "Jujus: Alchemy of the Blues":

You prophesied the return of mandolins
and tambourines and tinkling bells,
and triangles and cymbals,
and they sided in on beams from Pharoah Sanders as I slept
taking me unaware, tripping,
blowing my mind.
—Sarah Webster Fabio, 1976

Track listing

For the 1995 compact disc reissue, "The Creator Has a Master Plan" was re-edited back to a single track with a running time of 32:46.

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."The Creator Has a Master Plan" (part one)Pharoah Sanders, Leon Thomas19:20
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."The Creator Has a Master Plan" (part two)Pharoah Sanders, Leon Thomas13:36
2."Colors"Pharoah Sanders, Leon Thomas5:37

Personnel

References

  1. ^
    All Media Guide
    . Retrieved June 16, 2011.
  2. ^ Winner, Langdon (October 18, 1969). "Records". Rolling Stone (44). San Francisco: Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc.: 42.
  3. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0
    .
  4. ^ "How to Buy Pharoah Sanders". Uncut. November 2023. p. 69.
  5. ISBN 0-393-05879-4
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karma_(Pharoah_Sanders_album)&oldid=1192267927"