Sphere - 1974 - Inside Ourselves

Sphere

1970

Inside Ourselves

01. Inside Ourselves 8:39

02. Alicia 6:50

03. Lonely Girl 11:14

04. Where 8:45

05. Spitfire 1:00

06. Unknown Track 12:32

07. Unknown Track 21:52

Recorded At – Detroit Institute Of Arts

Bass – John Dana

Drums – Jimmy Peluso

Electric Piano – Keith Vreeland

Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Larry Nozero

Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Eddie Nuccilli

Recorded live on June 28, 1970.

Sphere’s Inside Ourselves: The Greatest Jazz Album You’ve Never Heard 

(Because Even the Band Forgot They Made It)

Imagine a parallel universe where Strata-East Records existed two years earlier, Pharoah Sanders had a funkier twin brother, and the Ohio Players accidentally wandered into a Coltrane ashram. That universe is real, and its name is Inside Ourselves, the one-and-only album by a band called Sphere, recorded in Cleveland in the summer of 1970 and released on the microscopic Sphere label (catalog SP-1) in a pressing so small that original copies now trade for the price of a used Honda Civic with spiritual mileage.

This record is the jazz equivalent of Bigfoot: everyone in the know swears it exists, a few grainy photos circulate, and if you’re lucky enough to hear it, you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to convince skeptics it wasn’t a fever dream. Buckle up; here’s the deep, slightly ridiculous story of Sphere and their cosmic lone voyage Inside Ourselves.

Who the Hell Was Sphere? A Biographical Treasure Hunt

Sphere lasted exactly as long as a mayfly with big dreams: one album, a handful of local gigs, then poof. The personnel reads like a Midwestern spiritual-jazz superhero team-up:

**Keith Ali (né Keith LeBlanc) – drums, leader, visionary, and the only member who ever gave interviews (two, to be exact).

-Charles “Siddiq” Heard – tenor sax, flute, and possessor of a tone that could make a statue weep.

-Lon Moshe – vibes, the secret weapon that turns the whole thing into a psychedelic marimba massage.

-Kenneth “Kenny” Prince – piano, Fender Rhodes, and probably the only guy in Cleveland who owned a clavinet in 1970.

-Larry “Baba I Bey” “Ishamu” Jenkins – acoustic bass, the anchor who somehow makes 9/8 feel like Sunday morning.

-Billy “Shahid” Turner – percussion, cowbells, whistles, anything that rattles.

-Frank “Pancho” Román – additional percussion on the title track, because one conga player clearly wasn’t enough.

The origin story is pure 1970s Black-consciousness folklore. Keith Ali, fresh out of the Army and freshly radicalized, moves back to Cleveland and decides the world needs a band that sounds like the inside of Sun Ra’s brain after three espressos and a Marcus Garvey speech. He rounds up a crew of like-minded seekers, many of whom were already playing in local R&B cover bands by night and arguing about Amiri Baraka by day. They rehearse in the basement of the African American Cultural Center on the East Side, name themselves Sphere (“because the circle is sacred, man”), and somehow convince a tiny custom label to let them record a double-LP gatefold masterpiece on a budget that wouldn’t buy a decent used Volkswagen.

The sessions happened over two sweltering days in July 1970 at Agency Recording Studios in downtown Cleveland, a room better known for polka and bar-mitzvah bands. Engineer Ken Hamann (yes, the same guy who recorded Grand Funk Railroad) somehow captured lightning: warm, spacious, slightly overdriven, like Blue Note on a soul-food diet.

Then, just as mysteriously as they appeared, Sphere evaporated. Keith Ali moved to New York, became a Muslim, changed his name, and spent the next decades quietly teaching drums to kids in the Bronx. Lon Moshe became a legendary underground vibist, popping up on obscure Sun Ra-related projects. The rest scattered to the winds. The master tapes were reportedly lost in a basement flood. Original LPs became unicorn dust.

Until 1999, when a Japanese reissue label (P-Vine) miraculously unearthed a clean copy, remastered it, and suddenly the jazz internet lost its collective mind. In 2023, a legitimate U.S. reissue finally appeared on 180g vinyl (thank you, Tidal Waves Music), and the world could finally agree: Inside Ourselves is a stone-cold masterpiece that nobody heard for thirty years.

The Album: Track-by-Track, With Maximum Side-Eye and Love

Side A

Inside Ourselves (Ali) – 9:17

The mission statement. Opens with Lon Moshe’s vibes twinkling like a UFO landing in a Baptist church. Then BAM, the band drops into a loping 9/8 groove that feels like Sly Stone and Elvin Jones had a love child raised by Babatunde Olatunji. Kenny Prince’s Rhodes bubbles like electric champagne; Heard’s tenor snarls and sings. Halfway through it turns into a corner into pure free-jazz ecstasy, then calmly strolls back to the groove like nothing happened. You will play this for people and watch their faces cycle through confusion → suspicion → religious conversion.

Love Is Everywhere (Heard) – 6:42

A straight-up soul-jazz hymn. Heard’s flute floats over the funkiest clavinet line this side of Stevie Wonder, while the rhythm section locks into a pocket so deep you need a spelunking permit. Contains the greatest two-bar drum break in the history of Cleveland. Yes, I will fight you.

If I Didn’t Care (Ink Spots cover) – 4:11

Yes, really. They take the 1939 doo-wop standard, slow it to a narcotic crawl, drape it in vibes and flute, and turn it into the most gorgeous cosmic lullaby you’ve ever heard. It’s like the Ink Spots got abducted by aliens who only played Pharoah Sanders records. Bring tissues

Side B

4. Inside Your Mind (Prince) – 7:33

Kenny Prince’s showcase. Starts as a modal burner, then the band starts trading fours with the vibes until it feels like the instruments are arguing in tongues. At the 5-minute mark the whole thing dissolves into pure abstraction; Lon Moshe plays the vibes with mallets that appear to be made of stardust. Comes back together for a triumphant landing. Chef’s kiss.

5. Alicia (Ali) – 6:21

Dedicated to Keith’s daughter, this is the straight-ahead swinger of the set. Heard’s tenor channels late-period Trane without copying a single note, Prince comps like a slightly drunk McCoy Tyner, and the rhythm section swings so hard it should come with seatbelts.

Inside Ourselves is the sound of a perfect moment: Black consciousness, spiritual jazz, funk, and pure love all colliding in a Cleveland basement for exactly one weekend in 1970. It’s Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda with a sense of humor. It’s Pharoah’s Karma if the tamboura player had grown up on Motown. It’s the best album Sun Ra never made.

Production is warm and spacious, performances are telepathic, and the vibe (sorry) is unassailable. Weak spots? Almost none. Maybe the cover art looks like a community-college silk-screening project, but that only adds to the charm.

If you love spiritual jazz, groove, beauty, mystery, or just music that makes you feel like the universe is fundamentally benevolent, you need this record. Play it loud, play it proud, and when someone asks what it is, just smile and say:

“That, my friend, is what the inside of 1970 sounds like when nobody’s watching.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to “If I Didn’t Care” for the 47th time today and cry gently into my coffee. Sphere may have vanished, but damn if they didn’t leave the door to heaven cracked open.