Freddie Hubbard & Leon Thomas - A Night in Tunisia (1979)

Line-up:
Freddie Hubbard - Trumpet
Leon Thomas - Vocals, Percurssion
Hadley Caliman - Tenor Saxophone
Billy Childs - Piano
Larry Klein - Bass
Carl Burnett - Drums

Pharoah Sanders - Jewels of Thought (1969)

In 1969, Pharoah Sanders was incredibly active, recording no less than four albums and releasing three. The band on Jewels of Thought is largely the same as on Deaf Dumb Blind and Karma, with a few changes. Idris Muhammad has, with the exception of "Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah Hum Allah," replaced Roy Haynes, and Richard Davis has permanently replaced Reggie Workman and Ron Carter, though Cecil McBee is still present for the extra bottom sound. Leon Thomas and his trademark holy warble are in the house, as is Lonnie Liston Smith. Comprised of two long cuts, the aforementioned and "Sun in Aquarius," Jewels of Thought sees Sanders moving out from his signature tenor for the first time and delving deeply into reed flutes and bass clarinet. The plethora of percussion instruments utilized by everyone is, as expected, part of the mix. "Hum-Allah" begins with a two-chord piano vamp by Smith and Thomas singing and yodeling his way into the band's improvisational space. For 12 minutes, Sanders and company mix it up -- especially the drummers -- whipping it first quietly down into the most pure melodic essences of Smith's solo and then taking the tension and building to ecstatic heights with all manner of blowing and intervallic interaction between the various elements until it just explodes, before coming down in pieces and settling into a hush of melodic frames and the same two-chord vamp. On "Sun in Aquarius," African thumb pianos, reed flutes, sundry percussion, and orchestra chimes are employed to dislocate all notions of Western music. Things get very quiet (though there is constant motion); the innards of the piano are brushed and hammered quietly before Sanders comes roaring out of the tense silence with his bass clarinet, and then the tenor and bass share an intertwined solo and Smith starts kicking ass with impossibly large chords. It moves into another two-chord vamp at the end of 27 minutes, to be taken out as a closed prayer. It's more like a finished exorcism, actually, but it is one of the most astonishing pieces by Sanders ever.

by Thom Jurek in All Music Guide

Styles:
Progressive Jazz
Post Bop
Free-Jazz
Yodel

Tracks:
01 - Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah (15:04)
02 - Sun in Aquarius (27:51)

Line-up:
Pharoah Sanders - tenor saxophone, contrabass clarinet, reed flute, African thumb piano, orchestra chimes, percussion
Leon Thomas - vocals, percussion
Lonnie Liston Smith - piano, African flute, African thumb piano, percussion
Idris Muhammad - drums, percussion
Roy Haynes - drums
Cecil McBee - bass, percussion
Richard Davis - bass, percussion

Leon Thomas - Spirits Known and Unknown (1969)

Leon Thomas' debut solo recording after his tenure with Pharoah Sanders is a fine one. Teaming with a cast of musicians that includes bassist Cecil McBee, flutist James Spaulding, Roy Haynes, Lonnie Liston Smith, Richard Davis, and Sanders (listed here as "Little Rock"), etc. Thomas' patented yodel is in fine shape here, displayed alongside his singular lyric style and scat singing trademark. The set begins with a shorter, more lyrical version of Thomas' signature tune "The Creator Has a Master Plan," with the lyric riding easy and smooth alongside the yodel, which bubbles up only in the refrains. It's a different story on his own "One," with Davis' piano leading the charge and Spaulding blowing through the center of the track, Thomas alternates scatting and his moaning, yodeling, howling, across the lyrics, through them under them and in spite of them. It's an intense ride and one that sets up the glorious "Echoes." This tune is Thomas at his most spiritual and uplifting, carrying the mysterious drift of his tune entwined with Spaulding's flute and a set of Pan pipes, fluttering in and out of the mix before his wail comes to the fore as a solo. The end of side one reaches into Thomas' past (he sang with everyone from Count Basie to Grant Green and Mary Lou Williams) for a highly original read of Horace Silver's classic "Song for My Father." Thomas imbues the tune with so much emotion, it's a wonder he can keep it under wraps. Side two is more free from in nature with "Damn Nam," a near rant, but one possessed with melodic vision and harmonic invention with this band. There's also the deeply moving "Malcolm's Gone," a co-write between Thomas and Sanders that features the latter's gorgeous blowing, hard and true in the middle of the mix, and a wildly spiritual Eastern vibe coming through in the improvisation. It's the longest track on the record, and one of the most criminally ignored in Thomas' long career. The album closes with Bell and Houston's "Let the Rain Fall on Me." It's a shimmering straight jazz number with a beautiful piano solo by Smith. It sends out a visionary album out on a sweet, soulful note. Ultimately, this is among Thomas' finest moments on vinyl, proving his versatility and accessibility to an audience who, for too long already, had associated him too closely with the avant-garde and free jazz.

Styles:
Avant-Garde
Yodel
Progressive Jazz

Tracks:
01 - Creator Has a Master Plan (Peace) (04:27)
02 - One (03:10)
03 - Echoes (05:42)
04 - Song For My Father (05:21)
05 - Damn Nam (Ain't Going to Vietnam) (04:46)
06 - Malcom's Gone (08:45)
07 - Let the Rain Fall on Me (05:39)
08 - Um, Um, Um (05:25)
09 - Night in Tunisia (08:27)
10 - Take the A Train [Alternate Take #1] (02:15)
11 - Take the A Train [Alternate Take #2] (02:09)
12 - Take the A Train [Master Take] (02:08)
13 - Walkin [Alternate Take] (02:34)
14 - Walkin [Master Take] (02:32)
15 - Willow weep for Me [Alternate Take ] (02:40)
16 - Willow weep for Me [Master Take] (02:34)
17 - If It Didn't Hurt So Much [Alternate Take] (02:41)
18 - If It Didn't Hurt So Much [Master Take] (02:35)

Line-up:
Leon Thomas - vocals
Lonnie Liston Smith - piano
James Spaulding - alto sax
Pharoah Sanders - tenor sax
Cecil McBee - bass
Richard Davis - bass
Roy Haynes - drums
Richard Landrum - bongos

Pharoah Sanders - Karma (1969)

John Coltrane left behind a legacy of experimental and extremely spiritual work whose timeless quality still reverberates today. After his untimely death many poseurs came out to stake their claim as the next Coltrane. Many tried and many failed. Then in 1969 a former sideman of Coltrane's, Pharoah Sanders, stepped out from the shadow of his mentor and recorded Karma, which bore the soul of Coltrane's musical and spiritual passion.
Karma was released four years after his first record as a leader, Pharoah's First (1965). While working with Coltrane, Sanders began to develop an aggressive tone that ripped into an anarchaotic passion owing as much to Coltrane as Albert Ayler. His records as a leader did not always reflect the raw energy that would show up on Coltrane classics such as Ascension. His 1966 Impulse! debut, Tauhid, is a great example of this. Sanders let the work take on a generalized groove that worked with the mood created in each piece. In doing so, he created not only his best pre-Karma record, but one of his finest overall. After Coltrane's death, Pharoah worked with his widow Alice before setting to work on what would become Karma.
As with many records of the mid to late-'60s/early '70s, Karma is based primarily around the first of two album tracks, "The Creator Has a Master Plan." The track is one of the finest and best-executed and edited jams ever caught on record, though many critics would and will argue with that statement. The master plan of tracks on contemporaneous Miles Davis records like In a Silent Way or Bitches Brew was created by the editing and production efforts of Teo Maceo. Recordings like Free Jazz or Ascension, in contrast, worked by virtue of the way they tore down sonic and musical boundaries. Sanders incorporates these values into "The Creator," making it more than just a loose jam; no matter where Sanders goes, he is in total control. Even as the piece peaks into volatile eruptions roughly sixteen minutes in, he saddles the passion and works the track back into the initial groove that was comprised its first movement.
"Creator" comes in at 32:47 and wastes not a single note. Opening with a virtual rush of sound, it then quiets down and drops a brief riff from A Love Supreme. The tune then works itself into a groove that would later be known as acid jazz, working with Eastern percussion and allowing the bass to float close to the front of the mix. This first section relies on a modal two-chord structure that keeps the tone bouncy and meditative. At eight minutes Leon Thomas begins a chant-like vocal that varies lines from the mantra "The creator has a master plan, peace and love for every man." The vocals drop and the third movement becomes an unrelenting Coltranesque blitz that tears the mellow mood apart, only to combine the angst and mellowness in the next movement and settle back into a reprise of the first fourteen minutes.
"Colors," on the other hand, is a shorter and more structured piece that features some solid and well-executed chops. Again Leon Thomas sings, and Ron Carter takes over the duties of Richard Davis and Reggie Workman.
Love or hate the music of Pharoah Sanders, you cannot deny the man's vision after hearing this record. His is an absolute genius approach to arrangement and performance. Though Sanders would release many great records and even mellow his distinctive tenor sound down, Karma is a record that deserves to be heard by any serious jazz fan.

by Trevor McLaren in All About Jazz

Styles:
Progressive Jazz
Modal
Post-bop
Avant-Garde
Free-Jazz

Tracks:
01 - The Creator Has a Master Plan (32:47)
02 - Colors (05:36)

Line-up:
Pharoah Sanders - Sax (Tenor)
Leon Thomas - Percussion / Vocals
Julius Watkins - French Horn
James Spaulding - Flute (on track 1)
Lonnie Liston Smith - Piano
Reggie Workman - Bass
Richard Davis - Bass (on track 1)
Ron Carter - Bass (on track 2)
Billy Hart - Drums (on track 1)
Freddie Waits - Drums (on track 2)
Nathaniel Bettis - Percussion (on track 1)
Leon Thomas - Vocals

Pharoah Sanders - Oh Lord, Let Me Do No Wrong (1987)

Although Pharoah Sanders was originally considered a firebrand, thanks to his wild early free jazz work in the '60s, his later records are actually more in the tradition of players like his one-time leader John Coltrane and, especially, Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The title track from this 1987 session could have been on any of Kirk's Atlantic albums, a mixture of gospel sway and free jazz honk that builds into a hypnotic swoon under Leon Thomas' rich baritone vocals. (Thomas also appears on his own composition, the blues "If It Wasn't for a Woman," and the closing "Next Time You See Me.") On the extended, relaxed take of Coltrane's "Equinox," Sanders doesn't try to copy his former boss' phrasing, but there's certainly a Coltrane-like elegance to Sanders' lyrical solo. In fact, Sanders' playing on the standard "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," which also features a lovely Vince Guaraldi-like piano solo by William S. Henderson III, is downright pretty. Oh Lord, Let Me Do No Wrong is a mellow and peaceful set by a player who no longer needs to make noise; whether old-school fans will appreciate this is debatable.

by Stewart Mason at All Music Guide

Style:
Free Jazz

Tracks:
01 Oh Lord, Let Me Do No Wrong
02 Equinox
03 Polka Dots and Moonbeams
04 If It Wasn't for a Woman
05 Clear Our of This World
06 Next Time You See Me

Line-up:
Pharoah Sanders - tenor saxophone
Donald Smith - electric piano
William S. Henderson III - acoustic piano
Tarik Shah - bass
Greg Banoy - drums
Leon Thomas - vocals