Pharoah Sanders
Karma

"Probably the best tenor player in the world." This is what Ornette Coleman said about Pharoah Sanders, perhaps exaggerating a bit, but who could blame him. Simply listening to him for a few seconds is enough to be captivated by his intensity and spiritual depth, rivaled perhaps only by the great John Coltrane.

Farrell Sanders (his real name) was born in Arkansas in 1940 and began playing the tenor saxophone very young. In the 1960s, he moved to New York, where he started playing with exceptional artists; it is enough to consider that the nickname Pharoah was given to him by the legendary Sun Ra, with whom he played for a period. Starting in 1965, he also began playing with John Coltrane, contributing to the experimentation of free-jazz. Sanders played in "Ascension" and "Meditations." The two great saxophonists influenced each other; both Coltrane in the latter part of his career and Sanders in his future records coined a new language whose foundation remains the experimentation of their time together. For example, Sanders' style is characterized by the use of "sheets of sound," borrowed from John Coltrane. Pharoah boasts other prestigious collaborations; in '68, he participated in Carla Blay and Michael Mantler's Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association, recording the album "Communications," which also features Don Cherry, Larry Coryell, Cecil Taylor, and Gato Barbieri, and where he performs what John Zorn defined as "the most intense and inspiring free tenor solo ever put to tape." Between the 1960s and 1970s, he began his "solo" career, dedicating himself to few collaborations, recording epochal albums. His masterpiece, or at least the album most responsible for his fame, is "Karma," dating back to 1970 and recorded for Impulse. This album fits into the vein of so-called "spiritual-jazz" and seems almost a continuation of "A Love Supreme," although Coltrane's masterpiece, in its supreme nature, is above any category, while in "Karma," elements of Indian and African music are more evident.

The album opens with the legendary "The Creator Has a Master Plan," almost 33 minutes long, composed with vocalist and percussionist Leon Thomas, featuring Lonnie Liston Smith on piano, James Spaulding on flute, Julius Watkins on French horn (the hunting horn); Reggie Workman on bass, who also played with Coltrane, and Richard Davis, who also appears in Eric Dolphy's "Out To Lunch"; Billy Hart on drums and Nathaniel Bettis on percussion.

The overture is entrusted to Sanders' sax, reminiscent of the lament of a muezzin and the scent of incense; it is the opening prayer before the rite (an intro later picked up by the Gun Club in the album "Las Vegas Story" in the song "The Creator Was A Master Plan"). One is immediately fascinated and captured by the music, and the introduction is nothing else but the announcement of a long journey. When Leon Thomas starts singing, there is a divine revelation: "The creator has a master plan / peace and happiness for every man / The creator has a working plan / peace and happiness for every man / The creator makes but one demand / happiness through all the land." This album is the sonic transfiguration of a Dante-like journey in search of the divine design ("There was a time, when peace was on the earth / And joy and happiness did reign, and each man knew his worth / In my heart, how I yearn for that spirit's return / And I cry, as time flies / Om, Om"), and Pharoah will guide us step by step, having faith in the divine plan even in the most difficult moments because he knows that those who reach the end will be rewarded ("There is a place where love forever shines / And rainbows are the shadows of a presence so divine / And the glow of that love lights the heavens above / And it's free, can't you see, come with me"). A spiritual journey then, a test that may last a lifetime or just a single day, or that may not end in this life, but continue until nirvana is reached. It is, therefore, a difficult journey, hostile, which can only be overcome by those who have the strength to believe that the final reward is worth more than the suffering encountered along the way. The struggle and suffering are expressed through free-jazz, through screams, through the infernal disorder that pervade the song in the middle of the path. Sanders' sax is fiery, restless, with an almost unbearable pathos. Gradually, the confusion returns to tranquility, the destination is near, and Leon begins to sing the initial theme again, almost reminding us that the Master Plan will not be abandoned. The subsequent "Colors," in fact, is immersed in an atmosphere of peace; nirvana, tranquility, redemption have finally been achieved.

Probably, in the end, you will find yourselves and realize that this album, much like life, a story, would not be such a masterpiece without all the blood and sweat shed along the way.

A work not to be missed, for jazz lovers and beyond.