Pharoah Sanders – Thembi

A spectacular sounding pressing which I have just revisited, now that Pharoah has ascended past his physical form.

Fly high, Mr. Sanders. We love you forever.

My copy looks fairly new but otherwise like the first pressing (also gatefold and labels exact replica). However, it has "BN 9206-A" and "BN 9206-B" stamped in the runout. I don't seem to find a release that matches, anyone else with a copy like mine?

Lonnie Liston Smith interview excerpt for Electronic Standards:

“Astral Travelling’ (1971) was the first time I played an Electric Piano! Before that, I only played the Grand Piano. I met Pharoah Sanders in the late sixties, and we were doing this particular record session in a California Studio when I found a strange instrument on the corner, cause you know, they have a lot of instruments there. I asked “What’s that?” and they said it was an Electric Piano! I started playing it and it blew people’s minds! At the time we recorded this music, I was studying Astral projections, so I decided to call it ‘Astral Travelling’. It’s a twelve-bar 21st Century Cosmic Blues! We recorded it for Pharoah Sanders’s ‘Thembi’ LP.
Working with Pharoah was great, he was doing different things with his horn, and me with the piano! And also Leon Thomas on the vocals, for example, on the ‘Karma’ LP (1969) by yodeling. We were all experimenting, wanting to do different things with the instruments!”

Sometimes i listen to this album and i am amazed at the way the instruments are being played and the sounds they are able to create.
"Astral traveling" and "Thembi" are unique, I cannot think of an album like it.
There must be other tracks even by Pharoah or other artists, but this album seems to stand out. .
The other thing which i don't know if others agree, This is not music as i know it.
Why should i like it or even love it?, because it is so strange to what i usually or normally listen too..
Maybe that is why i love it, it is almost like meditation..

Thembi has something for everyone. It came along at a very turbulent and uncertain time in the history of jazz. However, it's very eclectic stance gives it a foot in every dimension.

My mam is not normally a fan of free-jazz such as this, but when I put it on the other evening while she was doing one of her giant cross-stitches, she said she found it quite relaxing, and she let me have some ice cream as a special treat!!

These guys did something so special in years to come records like these will be a testament of what makes Human beings the most potent force in our universe, this album opened my ears and expressed that humans have something called a soul, very few people have ever achieved going to a higher plain through music, in my view what we have here is Shamans music that state of nirvāṇa.
Through their instruments they have transcended the physical to move towards the pure spirit.

"On Thembi, that was the first time that I ever touched a Fender Rhodes electric piano. We got to the studio in California — Cecil McBee had to unpack his bass, the drummer had to set up his drums, Pharoah had to unpack all of his horns. Everybody had something to do, but the piano was just sitting there waiting. I saw this instrument sitting in the corner and I asked the engineer, 'What is that?' He said, 'That’s a Fender Rhodes electric piano.' I didn’t have anything to do, so I started messing with it, checking some of the buttons to see what I could do with different sounds. All of a sudden I started writing a song and everybody ran over and said, 'What is that?' And I said, 'I don’t know, I’m just messing around.' Pharoah said, 'Man, we gotta record that. Whatcha gonna call it?' I’d been studying astral projections and it sounded like we were floating through space so I said let’s call it 'Astral Traveling.' That’s how I got introduced to the electric piano" — Lonnie Liston Smith

An unusually eclectic Pharoah record. "Astral Travelling" is a proto-Smooth Jazz journey to the New Age written by Smith, with Pharoah on soprano and Smith electric. "Red, Black & Green" is an intense free exploration. "Thembi" is a sunny love song, with Pharoah on soprano again.. "Love" is a bass solo by McBee that serves as an intro to "Morning Prayer", a ballad which in turn segues directly into "Ballophone Dance", a very afrocentric number.