Karma

Recording history and tape provenance

Pharoah Sanders arrived at Impulse! as the wilder, more extreme saxophone voice in John Coltrane's final working groups, a role that earned him a reputation before he'd properly established his own. Karma followed Tauhid (1967) as one of his early Impulse! albums as a leader, preceding a prolific run of spiritually-themed records the label released through the early 1970s. It became, by a wide margin, the best known and most widely sampled record of that run.

The album is essentially one long piece and one short one. "The Creator Has a Master Plan," co-written with vocalist Leon Thomas, runs past thirty minutes and echoes the structure of Coltrane's A Love Supreme – a suspended, out-of-tempo opening giving way to a bass vamp (Reggie Workman's line, widely compared to Jimmy Garrison's on "Acknowledgement") before building through Thomas's chant-and-yodel vocal, extended group improvisation featuring Sanders's overblowing and multiphonics, and a return to the opening theme. "Colors," recorded five days later with a different rhythm section, closes the album on a gentler, more contained note. Despite its length and avant-garde reputation, "Master Plan" achieved real FM radio airplay in 1969, and its influence runs through acid jazz, hip-hop sampling, and the more recent spiritual jazz revival. Charles Stewart, who shot roughly 2,000 album covers over his career including many for Impulse!, took the cover photograph.

Critically, Karma has only grown in stature: Pitchfork ranked it 53rd on its list of the greatest albums of the 1960s, Jazzwise included it among its "100 Jazz Albums That Shook the World," and The New Yorker named it one of the 100 essential jazz albums. The master tapes remain in good condition and in Universal's possession via the Verve Label Group, which now administers the Impulse! catalog – there is no tape-loss story complicating this one, and the 2022 Acoustic Sounds Series reissue was cut directly from them.

Stereo note

Karma was recorded and released in stereo only; by 1969 Impulse! had left mono production behind for new titles, so there's no mono/stereo decision to make here as there is with some earlier Impulse! or Riverside titles.

Original Impulse! pressings (1969)

Collectors distinguish original stereo copies by label design rather than by mono/stereo split:

• Earliest first pressing: single ABC/Impulse "box" logo, no ® registration mark next to it.
• Slightly later original pressing (still 1969): two-box ABC/Impulse logo with the ® mark appearing twice, black label with red rim – the variant most commonly found and described online. Both carry a laminated gatefold jacket; later 1970s repressings dropped the lamination.

Catalog number appears as A-9181 on the jacket and AS-9181 on the labels. A contemporaneous Capitol Record Club edition exists on the same black/red-rim label, identifiable by "SMAS" matrix numbers and pressed at the Jacksonville plant – a legitimate period pressing, but a club edition rather than a standard retail copy, and generally valued lower by collectors.

International pressings

France (Barclay/Impulse!, early 1970s): green/blue labels, "Made in France," some copies with a "Gravure Universelle" gold sticker. Japan (1973 gatefold reissue, IMP-88062): a promo-style Japanese gatefold pressing from the black/neon-logo Impulse! era. Neither has developed a dedicated audiophile reputation comparable to the US original or the Acoustic Sounds reissue, but both are legitimate, collectible period pressings for those building out a fuller Sanders collection.

The reissue hierarchy

Verve Acoustic Sounds Series (2022) – the definitive modern pressing

Cat. B0035572-01 | Format: Stereo, 180g, gatefold, 2022 | Remastered by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound from the original analog tape recordings, pressed at Quality Record Pressings, Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket. Released as a tribute reissue shortly after Sanders's death in September 2022, closing out that year's Acoustic Sounds Series calendar. Rated 5/5 for music and 5/5 for sonics by The Absolute Sound in its March 2023 issue – an unusually clean sweep. One packaging quirk worth knowing: the center labels and gatefold list side B as just "Colors," but the side actually opens with the unlisted second part of "The Creator Has a Master Plan" before "Colors" itself, which runs only 5:43.

Two independent direct A/Bs against original pressings (WCB Jazz Vinyl against a standard original; Concert Buddie against a 1969 Capitol Record Club copy) both preferred the reissue overall, citing more low-end detail (audible bass vibrato not previously noticed), a more forward and dynamic Sanders solo, and better instrument separation generally. One specific improvement worth flagging: on the original pressing, Leon Thomas's vocal entrance carries a distracting echo/distance that isn't part of the intended sound – both reviewers who checked found this substantially reduced on the reissue. Not every comparison point favored the reissue outright, though: one reviewer found the auxiliary hand percussion (chimes, bells) more prominent and evident on their vintage Capitol Club copy than on the reissue. One reviewer also noted their reissue copy had a mild "wobble" or non-flat pressing near the center spindle – audible but not described as a serious playback problem, and possibly an isolated QC variance rather than a systemic issue.

Pressings to avoid

An unofficial, unlicensed pressing (catalog ACL0087) circulates outside the main Discogs master listing – a straightforward bootleg rather than a legitimate reissue from any era, and worth steering clear of regardless of price.

Buyer's guide by budget

$ (Budget): Verve Acoustic Sounds Series (2022) – genuinely the easiest recommendation in this guide; new, tape-sourced, and critically acclaimed.

$$$ (Mid-range): A clean original Impulse! stereo pressing – genuinely realistic to find a decent original at this tier, unlike many equally sought-after titles from the same era.

$$$$$ (Grail / Rare): A near-mint, laminated-gatefold original first pressing (single-box logo, no ®) for collectors chasing the earliest possible copy.

Pressing tier summary

References

• Discogs (master): https://www.discogs.com/master/54110-Pharoah-Sanders-Karma
• Discogs release and community listings for all pressings referenced in the tier table above (original AS-9181 first pressing and black/red-rim variant, Capitol Record Club edition, Acoustic Sounds Series B0035572-01, French Barclay/Impulse!, Japanese IMP-88062)
• YouTube, WCB Jazz Vinyl, "Pharoah Sanders' Karma - Original vs Acoustic Sounds shoot-out": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0evcuODGgw
• YouTube, Concert Buddie, "Vinyl Record Shootout: Karma by Pharoah Sanders": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnQtRFIdH8g

Related guides: Journey in Satchidananda · A Love Supreme · The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady