Happy 55th Anniversary to Pharoah Sanders’ Karma, originally released in May 1969.
I never imagined I’d get here. For a period of time of which I’m annoyingly unsure, I would wake up each morning and assume that that day would be the last day that I’d be able to live my life in any meaningful way. In October 2019, I was diagnosed with a form of cancer called polycythaemia vera. While far from being an immediate threat to my mortality and much less serious than things other people deal with, it still sent me spiraling.
Each morning I woke up with the Damoclean thought that my fairly benign, even gentle, form of bone marrow cancer, would transform (as it can) into something much more aggressive and ultimately deadly. I was exhausted on a daily basis from the mental gymnastics I would perform to get through each day without letting anyone know that I was suffering.
I wish I knew exactly when I stopped feeling this way, but like most things it was a gradual process over a period of time. By the time I reached out for therapeutic help, I was broken and wallowing in self-pity (amongst many other, long-established behaviors). The therapy helped but I can say with some certainty that music more than played its part and chief amongst those was Pharoah Sanders’ work.
I heard Promises by Floating Points, the London Symphony Orchestra and Sanders in Spring 2021 and my whole world changed. I reviewed it here, but I’d never felt more redundant in trying to write about something, as I felt I had spectacularly failed in communicating even one iota of my feelings about it. Spurred on by this spectacular album, I dived headlong into Sanders’ work.
I always find it a little overwhelming when looking at jazz discographies, especially when people like Sanders were, at times, contracted to two albums per year. There is just so much to choose from with myriad accompanists and record labels to cloud the issue. It wasn’t long though before I arrived at Karma. If the title itself wasn’t enough of a clue, the album cover designed by Joe Lebow immediately added to it. With Sanders deep in meditation and his arms outstretched, the album title and his name swirled above him in deep red and purple lettering—it certainly felt like the beginning of a spiritual experience.
But nothing could have prepared me for what lay ahead.
Tremulous flute, bells, keys and Sanders’ tenor sax seemed to levitate from the first second, hovering in preparation for astral lift off, but then a couple of minutes in, the bassline strode into view and tethered it to the ground. It was calming and controlled—everything my mind wasn’t. And then Leon Thomas’ rich, deep tones began to recite the poem that provided the song title: “The creator has a master plan / Peace and happiness for every man / The creator has but one demand / Peace and happiness throughout the land.”
Listen to the Album:
It felt as if he were singing to me and only me—that it had been designed to bring me exactly what I needed. But as I listened on, it became clear that those moments of bliss and calm were punctuated by periods of disquieting disruption, when the band would go crazy. The waves of percussion from Nathaniel Bettis, the discordant piano from Lonnie Liston Smith and the euphoric ululations of Leon Thomas all combined with Sanders’ majestic, restless alto sax playing to create a storm of epic proportions. But every single time the band went crazy, the calm returned again, that hypnotically simple bass line a soothing balm.
At times, my diagnosis threatened to overtake and drown me—to submerge me in waves of dread and fear that I’d shuffle off this mortal coil and miss my daughter growing up. I’d get the same feelings when the band raised the chaotic cacophony, but realized that every time the clamor and noise grew, it was brought back down. This made me also realize that the same could be said for my impending and ever-growing sense of doom. I could, if I tried, control it.
I’d been diagnosed when I’d had dizzy spells and on seeing a doctor was admitted to A&E (ER to American friends) with ridiculously high blood pressure. I remember clearly being woken during the first night of my hospital stay to be told by a softly spoken doctor that I had a condition and I’d just have to take tablets for the rest of my life. While less than optimal, the news felt relatively easy to take. Of course, the next day brought the revelation that what I had was considered a form of cancer, albeit one nowhere near as serious as others and that the medication meant the end of any chance of adding to our family. A huge decision made for us in the blink of an eye.
The power of that word once heard in relation to you or a loved one is almost impossible to imagine. But over the course of my mental improvement, I came to realize that the word only had the power that I allowed it to have. I could accept the occasional maelstrom of emotions, as long as I came out the other side and regained equilibrium. “The Creator Has A Master Plan” and “Colors” both helped me understand that and encouraged me with its most powerful quality—optimism. With that came the hope that I might see my daughter grow up.
Whenever you read anything about Pharoah Sanders, the word that most often comes up is “freedom.” In one of his rare interviews (from 2016), he said “Whatever comes through me, I’m trying to express and free myself and let it out whatever it is.” Equally, any look more than a cursory one at interviews he has done will reveal that he stood squarely in his own humility. There’s a constant sense of insecurity and a lack of confidence despite the plaudits and praise. Indeed with “The Creator Has A Master Plan,” Sanders even managed to get mainstream FM radio airplay—a feat not many jazz musicians can boast of achieving.
In looking to sum up my complex relationship to Karma in simple terms, I would defer to the words of Shabaka Hutchings during a 2019 interview with Andy Thomas: “Pharoah had that vision of what being rooted to such a powerful sound can be, and that powerful sound is something that liberates the function of being a musician from simply being a musician into being a healer.”
Pharoah Sanders undoubtedly helped heal me and, no doubt, countless others. I only wish I could have articulated this before he transitioned as I would have loved to have found a way to thank him.
Listen: