Karma (1969)

"The Creator Has a Master Plan" I was halfway set to take the standard indie-oriented kind of position and gripe about how this masterwork, Pharoah Sanders's signature achievement, had been widely ignored on the way to its "current obscurity." Turns out, however, that it actually made Billboard's Hot 200 Albums chart in 1969. More fool me, even if I still insist that's at least as indicative of the times as of the power of this magnificent music. But, right, what matters most is what's in the grooves and here there are few things finer. The lush and unruly percussion of the 35-minute centerpiece, the use of two bass players, Lonnie Liston Smith's sensitive, persistent, and wide-ranging keyboard, Sanders's soaring wailing tenor saxophone, Leon Thomas's warm and homely delivery of the simple and quietly beautiful words and vocals. Few pieces of music are more purely transcendent.

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