On its surface, actor
Richard Harris' set of orchestrated readings from Kahlil Gibran's 1923 spiritual classic seems like another attempt by a record label to cash in on the spiritual searching that flowered during the '70s from its bloom in the preceding decade. And on some level, it is exactly that; but it is also much more. Atlantic Records may have been trying to make a bank run from the book's popularity in the early part of the decade, but no one told the musicians or
Harris that this was the case. Certainly not
Arif Mardin, who composed and arranged the music, produced the session, and hired the players. Some of them include drummer
Steve Gadd, guitarist
Hugh McCracken, bassist
Tony Conrad, and
Phil Bodner on woodwinds (some of these players would appear on
Mardin's own little-known classic jazz album
Journey the following year). The session players fronted a complete orchestra and a chorus.
Mardin was playing for keeps on
The Prophet (check the tracks "Teaching and Self-Knowledge" and especially the CTI-worthy jazz funk in "On Pleasure" and "Theme from the Prophet").