Pharoah Sanders – Thembi

Thembi is the seventh album by free jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. He and other musicians played a wide variety of instruments. Sanders played tenor, alto and soprano saxophone, bailophone (African thumb piano), small percussion instruments and a cow horn.

Pharoah Sanders - tenor and soprano saxophones, alto flute, koto, brass bells, balaphone, maracas, cow horn, fifes

Lonnie Liston Smith - piano, electric piano, claves, percussion, ring cymbal, shouts, balaphone

Michael White - violin, percussion

Cecil McBee - bass, finger cymbal, percussion

Roy Haynes - drums

Clifford Jarvis - drums, maracas, bells, percussion

Nat Bettis, Chief Bey, Majid Shabazz, Anthony Wiles - African percussion James Jordan - ring cymbal

Ever since Pharoah Sanders recorded his first solo album in 1964, slowly developing, page-long (and sometimes even longer!) and mantra-like improvisations have been one of his trademarks. In this respect, the 1971 album "Thembi" stood out in the saxophonist and flautist's discography. Here he presented an astonishingly wide range of relatively concise ideas in six songs with a top-class ensemble.