Jazz

Pharoah Sanders - Crescent With Love (1994)

2012-12-14T17:21:07Z

Pharoah Sanders - Crescent With Love (1994)

Disc 1
1. Lonnie's Lament
2. Misty
3. In A Sentimental Mood
4. Softly For Shyla
5. Wise One
6. Too Young To Go Steady

Disc 2
1. Body And Soul
2. Naima
3. Feelin' Good
4. Light At The Edge
5. Crescent
6. After The Rain

Personnel:
Pharoah Sanders - tenor saxophone
William Henderson - piano
Charles Fambrough - bass)
Sherman Ferguson – drums

Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders worked extensively in John Coltrane's bands from 1965 until Coltrane's passing in 1967. At the time of making this tribute album, Sanders probably knew Coltrane and his music better than anyone outside of Coltrane's surviving wife, harpist/pianist Alice Coltrane, and members of his classic quartet, pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones.

There is something quietly significant then in the fact that Sanders recorded Crescent with Love not one or two years before the 25th anniversary of Coltrane's death—as had other tribute makers, so that their discs could be released amidst all the useful publicity that could be anticipated during the anniversary year—but towards the end of the anniversary year itself, in October, 1992. For Sanders to have planned the release of the album to benefit from a short-lived period of heightened media interest might, to some people including Sanders himself, have seemed too calculating. Sanders, the chronology suggests, was inspired to make Crescent with Love by the anniversary itself, not by the prospect of marketing support seen from afar.

This sense of integrity is drenched deep into the music as well. Without at any time attempting to "be" Coltrane, retaining his own singular sound and style throughout, Sanders creates a uniquely vibrant evocation of Coltrane's genius at particular time in his development. Interestingly—some may say happily—the particular time Sanders chooses to evoke is not the late period Coltrane with which he'd personally been involved.

Sanders had been in Coltrane's bands from the depth charge that was Ascension (Impulse!, 1965) up until The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording (Impulse!, 1967), a period during which Coltrane, in a final, perhaps desperate, surge of energy had taken his music out to the furthest edges. Instead of winding back to 1965-67, however, Sanders—who had included "Ascension" itself on his album Black Unity (Impulse!, 1971)—rewound further, to 1959-65, to focus on Coltrane the balladeer and optimistic spiritual celebrant.

Of the nine tunes on Crescent with Love either written or recorded by Coltrane, seven were unveiled on 1962-65 albums for Impulse!—from Coltrane (Impulse!, 1962) to The John Coltrane Quartet Plays (Impulse!, 1965)—and the other two on even earlier, Atlantic albums, Giant Steps (Atlantic, 1959) and Coltrane's Sound (Atlantic, 1960).

Three other tracks—"Misty," "Light At The Edge Of The World" and "Softly For Shyla"—are associated with Sanders alone. Pianist William Henderson's peaceful "Softly For Shyla," previously heard on Sanders's A Prayer Before Dawn (Evidence, 1987), is an interesting inclusion in the context of a Coltrane tribute album. Shyla is used as a woman's name, but is it also an anagram? Is Shyla, reversed to become Alyhs, here an allusion to Alice Coltrane? A fanciful speculation perhaps, but Sanders's music encourages mental perigrinations, including semiotic ones.

Coltrane connections aside, Crescent with Love is also one of Sanders's finest mature albums. The sound he developed alongside Coltrane, and then burnished and refined on his own late 1960s/early 1970s albums, is here in its full grown-up glory—out there but lyrical, multiphonic but mellifluous. The production is simple and vivid, with Sanders and Henderson—whose rippling, at times harp-like cadenzas are in a tradition Sanders has favoured since his early masterpiece Tauhid (Impulse!, 1967)—to the fore without obscuring Charles Fambrough and Sherman Ferguson's solidly supportive bass and drums. Magnificent music through and through. ---Chris May, allaboutjazz.com

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Pharoah Sanders - Tauhid (1966)

2013-01-20T17:31:51Z

Pharoah Sanders - Tauhid (1966)


1. "Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt" (Sanders) (16:12)
2. "Japan" (Sanders) (3:22)
3. "Medley:Aum/Venus/Capricorn Rising" (Sanders) (14:46)

Personnel: 
Pharoah Sanders: tenor and alto saxophone, piccolo, voice; 
Sonny Sharrock: guitar; 
Dave Burrell: piano; 
Henry Grimes: bass; 
Roger Blank: drums; 
Nat Bettis: percussion.

Conventional wisdom has it that saxophonist Pharoah Sanders' signature, late-1960s astral jazz recording is "The Creator Has A Master Plan" from Karma (Impulse!, 1969). But conventional wisdom is rarely to be trusted. Clocking in at an unhurried and mesmerising 32:45, "Master Plan" is certainly definitive Sanders of the time; yet "Upper Egypt And Lower Egypt," from Sanders' own-name Impulse! debut, Tauhid, recorded in November, 1966, is arguably the finest statement in his astral oeuvre.

At a relatively brief 16:16, "Egypt" has all the elements which characterised Sanders' astral excursions—explicit spiritual references, vocal chants, a rolling bass ostinato, "exotic" percussion, out-there but lyrical tenor saxophone, and extended vamp-based collective jamming—and crucially, was played by an edgier and more challenging band, including guitarist Sonny Sharrock and pianist Dave Burrell, than was assembled for Karma. The later album was made by a distinctly more blissed-out line-up, lacking Sharrock, in which the comfort-zone pianist Lonnie Liston Smith and vocalist Leon Thomas figured large.

With Tauhid, however, Sanders—at the time a regular member of saxophonist John Coltrane's band and revelling in his first album as leader since the sock-peeling Pharoah's First (ESP Disk, 1964)—was still stretching the envelope. Of all Sanders' Impulse! albums—he stayed with the label until late 1973, when he fell victim to cost-cutting imposed by corporate bosses ABC Records—Tauhid, produced by Bob Thiele, who also produced Karma before quitting Impulse! in the summer of 1969, also has the best sound.

"Egypt" takes a long time to get to the point, and therein lies much of its charm. Divided into two distinct sections, "Upper Egypt" and "Lower Egypt," the first part is a long, teasing introduction, always seemingly on the brink of resolving itself and giving way to the main theme, but avoiding doing so for almost 9 minutes. Henry Grimes' propulsive post-"Love Supreme" bass ostinato enters at this point, the tempo picks up and the vamp changes—but it's another 3 minutes before Sanders, previously heard only on piccolo, enters on tenor with the unfolding-sunrise main theme, which he reiterates, reconfigures and improvises around for the final 4 minutes, over a fat piano and percussion groove and Sharrock's raggedly crystalline chord work.

"Upper Egypt And Lower Egypt" is so perfect that the rest of Tauhid tends to get forgotten, but the four shorter tracks which complete the album, totalling another 18:08, are also magnificent. "Japan," inspired by Sanders' tour of the country with Coltrane's band in the summer of 1966, is as pretty as pink lotus blossom. "Aum" and "Venus," the first with Sanders on alto, are tougher and further out, before the concluding "Capricorn Rising" re-establishes the album's peaceful opening vibe.

Over the next few years, Lonnie Liston Smith, already worryingly jazz-funkish on Karma, played a key role on Sanders' albums, which became increasingly codified and formulaic. In retrospect, the first cut was indeed the deepest, and for many devotees Tauhid remains Sanders' astral jazz muthalode, and "Upper Egypt And Lower Egypt" his finest (quarter) hour. ---Chris May, allaboutjazz.com

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Pharoah Sanders - The Impulse Story (2006)

2011-08-28T10:44:29Z

Pharoah Sanders - The Impulse Story (2006)


1. Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt 16:16
2. The Creator Has a Master Plan 32:45
3. Astral Traveling 5:48
4. Spiritual Blessing 5:40				play 

Personnel:

Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt:
Pharoah Sanders-tenor saxophone, piccolo, percussion, vocal;
Dave Burrell-piano;
Sonny Sharock-electric guitar;
Henry Grimes-bass;
Nat Bettis-percussion;
Roger Blank- drums

The Creator Has a Master Plan:
Pharoah Sanders-tenor saxophone;
Julius Watkins-French horn;
James Spaulding-flute;
Lonnie Liston Smith-piano;
Richard Davis, Reggie Workman-bass;
Nat Bettis-percussion;
Billy Hart-drums;
Leon Thomas-vocal, percussion.

Astral Traveling:
Pharoah Sanders-soprano saxophone,  percussion;
Michael White-violin;
Lonnie Liston Smith-electric piano;
Cecil McBee-bass;
Clifford Jarvis-drums.

Spiritual Blessing:
Pharoah Sanders-soprano saxophone;
Joe Bonner-harmonium;
Calvin Hill-tamboura;
Lawrence Killian-bell tree;
John Blue, Jimmy Hopps-percussion;
Michael Carvin-drums.

Pharoah Sanders began his recording career as a fully paid-up, card-carrying member of the extreme fringe of the mid-'60s new wave. His first album, in 1964, was for ESP-Disk, a tiny but influential independent run by sonic ninja Bernard Stollman, who was also an early champion of Albert Ayler (he recorded Ayler's world-changing Spiritual Unity and Bells albums in 1964 and 1965).

In 1965, John Coltrane began regularly calling on Sanders to augment his late-period outer-reaches band. Sanders is one of the saxophonists frightening the horses on Ascension, Live In Seattle and Meditations (recorded in 1965) and Live At The Village Vanguard Again! (1966). He's also heard (though poorly, due to the sound quality) on The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording (1967).

But all this while, Sanders was developing his own, more conventionally lyrical, world music-drenched—and, frankly, caned and out of its tree—take on the new wave, sometimes leading his own band, sometimes playing with pianist/harpist Alice Coltrane. After John Coltrane's death in 1967, Sanders and Alice Coltrane continued to follow their tripped-out modal path, creating something which—for want of a better phrase—could be called astral jazz.

Sanders' astral jazz retained his signature sound from the John Coltrane band—harmonics, multiphonics, vocalisations, giddy leaps in pitch—and applied them to a more mellifluous, vamp and ostinato-driven style packed with African and South Asian percussion instruments, world rhythms, bells... and a lot of incense.

In 1966, Impulse! producer/A&R man Bob Thiele offered Sanders his own contract, and a river of outstanding music began to flow. The first album, Tauhid, is probably the finest Sanders/Thiele collaboration, and its mesmeric, slow-burning sixteen-minute opener, "Upper Egypt And Lower Egypt," begins this compilation. Guitarist Sonny Sharrock is memorably featured up front. "The Creator Has A Master Plan," from 1969's Karma, follows in all its blissed-out 33 minutes of glory.

Pharoah Sanders: The Impulse Story is one of ten single-CD artist samplers released as part of the The House That Trane Built project. Ashley Kahn, the compiler of this album—and the overall box set and book project—was never going to keep everyone happy. I'd have found room on this album for the berserk drums and whistles romp of "High Life," from 1972's Wisdom Through Music, even if meant dropping "Astral Travelling" (from 1970's underwhelming Thembi). But the closer here, "Spiritual Blessing," from 1973's Elevation, with its concord of harmonium, tamboura and bell tree, deserves inclusion. ---Chris May, allaboutjazz.com

Like the Archie Shepp and Alice Coltrane volumes in the Impulse Story series, the Pharoah Sanders issue is one of the flawless ones -- despite the fact that it only contains four tracks. Ashley Kahn, author of the book the series is named after, wisely chose tracks with Sanders as a leader rather than as a sideman with John Coltrane (those were documented quite well on the John and Alice volumes). The set begins with "Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt," recorded in 1966 while he was still a member of the Coltrane band. Featuring Sanders on tenor, piccolo, percussion, and vocals, it also contains a who's who of the vanguard: pianist Dave Burrell, guitarist Sonny Sharrock, bassist Henry Grimes, percussionist Nat Bettis, and drummer Roger Blank. Sanders could take a disparate group of players like this one and wind them into his sound world. Burrell is the most automatically sympathetic, and lends a hand in creating a series of call-and-response exchanges with Sanders so Sharrock and Grimes follow suit -- not the other way around.

This is also the place where the listener really encounters Sharrock's unique (even iconoclastic) playing -- he performed on Miles Davis' seminal Jack Johnson album but was mixed out. At over 16 minutes, it is barely a hint of what is to come. This cut is followed by Sanders' magnum opus, "The Creator Has a Master Plan." Based on a simple vamp, it unravels into an almost 33-minute textured improvisation that sounds like it could move heaven and earth because it almost literally explodes. Recorded for the Karma album in 1969, "The Creator" also features the late great Leon Thomas on vocals, providing his eerie, deep, and soulful "voice as improvisational instrument" approach that sends the tune soaring. Other sidemen here are bassists Richard Davis and Reggie Workman, James Spaulding, Julius Watkins, pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, Bettis, and drummer Billy Hart. This is where this track belongs, not on the box where it took time and space away from other artists. "Astral Traveling," from the 1970 platter Thembi, follows, with the great violinist Michael White serving as foil to the lyric Pharoah.

The last two tracks really chart Sanders' development not just as an improviser and composer but as a bandleader and in his mastery of the soprano saxophone -- only Steve Lacy and Coltrane did it better. The sprawl is tightened -- this cut is less than six minutes long -- but mainly in the way he leads the band with his approach to the saxophone and its dynamics. Cecil McBee plays bass here and Clifford Jarvis is on drums, and Smith uses an electric piano to fantastic effect. The final cut here, "Spiritual Blessing" from the Elevation album in 1973, is widely regarded as another Sanders classic with the man himself on soprano. He is accompanied by a group of percussionists, including Michael Carvin, Jimmy Hopps, John Blue, and Lawrence Killian. Sanders uses the percussionists as a counter to the featured drone instruments (with Joe Bonner on harmonium and Calvin Hill on tamboura). At just under six minutes, it's a song that perfectly fuses Eastern and Western musical improvisational traditions. Listening to this volume of the course of an hour is literally an aurally expansive and spiritually enlightening experience. If you can only have one of the CDs in this series, this may be the one to snag -- along with Alice Coltrane's chapter, this is spiritual jazz at its very best. ---Thom Jurek, allmusic.com

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Pharoah Sanders - Thembi (1966)

2013-01-26T17:05:36Z

Pharoah Sanders - Thembi (1966)


1. Astral Travelling (5:48)
2. Red, Black & Green (8:56)
3. Thembi (7:02)
4. Love (5:12)
5. Morning Prayer (9:11)
6. Bailophone Dance (5:43)

Musicians:
Pharoah Sanders (tenor & soprano saxophones, alto flute, fife, bailophone, brass bell, bells, maracas, cow horn, percussion); 
Michael White (violin, percussion); 

Lonnie Liston Smith (bailophone, piano, electric piano, claves, ring cymbals, percussion, background vocals); 
Cecil McBee (bass, finger cymbals, percussion, sound effects); Clifford Jarvis (drums, maracas, bells, percussion); 
Roy Haynes (drums); 
Chief Bey, Majid Shabazz, Anthony Wiles, Nat Bettis (percussion);
James Jordon (ring cymbals).

Recorded with two different ensembles, Thembi was a departure from the slowly developing, side-long, mantra-like grooves Pharoah Sanders had been pursuing for most of his solo career. It's musically all over the map but, even if it lacks the same consistency of mood as many of Sanders' previous albums, it does offer an intriguingly wide range of relatively concise ideas, making it something of an anomaly in Sanders' prime period. Over the six selections, Sanders romps through a tremendous variety of instruments, including tenor, soprano, alto flute, fifes, the African bailophone, assorted small percussion, and even a cow horn. Perhaps because he's preoccupied elsewhere, there's relatively little of his trademark tenor screaming, limited mostly to the thunderous cacophony of "Red, Black & Green" and portions of "Morning Prayer." The compositions, too, try all sorts of different things. Keyboardist/pianist Lonnie Liston Smith's "Astral Traveling" is a shimmering, pastoral piece centered around his electric piano textures; "Love" is an intense, five-minute bass solo by Cecil McBee; and "Morning Prayer" and "Bailophone Dance" (which are segued together) add an expanded percussion section devoted exclusively to African instruments. If there's a unifying factor, it's the classic title track, which combines the softer lyricism of Sanders' soprano and Michael White's violin with the polyrhythmic grooves of the most Africanized material (not to mention a catchy bass riff). Some fans may gripe that Thembi isn't conceptually unified or intense enough, but it's rare to have this many different sides of Sanders coexisting in one place, and that's what makes the album such an interesting listen. --- Steve Huey, Rovi

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Pharoah Sanders Quintet – Pharoah's First (1965)

2013-03-27T17:17:58Z

Pharoah Sanders Quintet – Pharoah's First (1965)


1 Seven By Seven 	26:20 	
2 Bethera 	23:40

Personnel:
William Bennett -   Bass (2)
Marvin Pattillo -  Percussion 
Jane Getz -  Piano 
Pharoah Sanders -  Tenor Saxophone 
Stan Foster -    Trumpet (2)

Hindsight can work wonders on the perception of a jazz musician's career, which makes it an exceptionally valuable tool to look at that artist's early recordings. Through the historian's lens, we can find snippets of what is to come in that first solo, a young-but-confident blueprint of artistic trajectory as well as some startling differences. Jazz Advance, for example, paints Cecil Taylor as a bizarrely-shaped branch of the Herbie Nichols tree, and it is hard to see the connection between Trane's spot as a lanky upstart in Dizzy Gillespie's band and Ascension. Yet on tenor man Pharoah Sanders' first date as a leader (and his first known commercially-released recording), we can see major stylistic hallmarks already present in a standard quintet format, a soloistic presence that will, in the years to come, be both nurtured and broken apart.

Sanders came to New York from San Francisco in 1962 and spent much of this early period scuffling, often homeless and barely working as a musician. His first break came as part of an early Don Cherry band in 1963, a quintet that recorded several pieces for Savoy that have never been issued, a band that also featured pianist Joe Scianni and stalwart Ornette bassist David Izenzon. By 1964, Sanders was working in a cooperative group with pianist/composer Carla Bley and percussionist Charles Moffett, as well as in various Cherry aggregations and, in September of that year, brought a quintet into Jerry Newman's studio to record ESP 1003, Pharaoh (later retitled Pharoah's First—his name taking on the altered spelling somewhere in this period).

Joining the tenor man on two side-long blowing numbers were drummer Marvin Patillo, who would record with Sonny Simmons (Staying on the Watch, ESP), pianist Jane Getz (a Mingus alum who would later record folk blues for Verve-Forecast), trumpeter Stan Foster, and bassist William Bennett. One might half expect Sanders to have brought with him some of his regular associates at the time—Moffett, Henry Grimes, altoist Byron Allen—but in many ways, his compatriots here are a blessing, if a mainstream hard bop ensemble.

"Seven By Seven would not have sounded out of place on Giant Steps, even the opening chorus of Sanders' lilting tenor, which sounds for all the world like one of Trane's earlier workouts until it is summarily given a tug of war between those keening hallmark Trane phrases and grotesque honks and multiphonics that, if not the bandsaw-on-sheet metal that would be a hallmark of solos on "Om, for example, certainly belie an allegiance to another world of sound that is as much the "Holy Ghost as it is the "Father."

Sanders' heel-digging buzzes and screams are made ever more stark in their presence by the rhythm section, Getz's piano comping seemingly unsure of its job and summarily distracted while Bennett's rock and Patillo's Philly Joe licks seem to be the most respondent (and, in a way, unwavering) with Sanders' whims. Foster contributes a pinched, nasal trumpet solo that, while certainly not exactly hard bop, is unsure of exactly how to follow the tenor, even as Patillo builds a rising tide of percussion thermals to spur on the proceedings. Getz takes a thoughtful, well-constructed Tyner/Evans-esque solo that is surreally out of place with its preceding context, before Sanders, Foster and the pianist enter into a collective improvisation to take the piece out.

"Bethera has a head that might have been copped from an earlier Trane blues, its theme even less a springboard for free improvisation, but Pharoah somehow finds a slight descending chord on which to harp his guttural yelps, even as much of this lengthy solo takes on a tonal aesthetic that is decidedly Atlantic-era Trane. Despite these tonal affinities, and it is something that is more noticeable in a "'straighter number such as this, Sanders seems to be utilizing phrase-based free association (á la Newk or Cherry), rather than necessarily moving through and wringing out chords and modes as Trane had.

This is a crucial difference between these two reedmen, and as much as young Sanders was beholden to Trane—of course, it would not be long before he joined Trane's quintet—he is decidedly into something uniquely his even at this early stage. Getz and Foster sound noticeably more at home here and Patillo and Bennett seem comfortable easing up. Nevertheless, this would be the last time for a number of years that Sanders would utilize a more "mainstream band for his work.

Pharoah's First, though somewhat of an aesthetic anomaly in the ESP catalog and, at the time, given more 'could-have-been' status than it probably deserved, is a crucial workshop puzzle-piece that gives historians of improvised music one very important look at Pharoah Sanders and his young, big ideas. ---Clifford Allen, allaboutjazz.com

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Pharoah Sanders – Elevation (1973)

2011-08-23T17:05:44Z

Pharoah Sanders – Elevation (1973)


1.Elevation   
2.Greeting to Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)  	play 
3.Ore-Se-Rere   
4.The Gathering   
5.Spiritual Blessing

Personnel:

Pharoah Sanders (vocals, flute, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, shaker, percussion, bells);
Calvin Hill (vocals, tamboura, bass guitar, tambora);
Joe Bonner (vocals, wooden flute, cow horn, piano, harmonium, cowbells, percussion);
Michael Carvin (vocals, drums, percussion);
Lawrence Killian (vocals, congas, percussion, bells);
John Blue (vocals, percussion);
Sedatrius Brown (vocals);
Thabo Michael Carvin (drums);
Michael White (violin);
Kenneth Nash , Jimmy Hopps (percussion).

Elevation, Pharoah Sanders' final album for Impulse!, is a mixed bag. Four of the five cuts were recorded live at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles in September of 1973, and the lone studio track, "Greeting to Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)," was recorded in the same month at Wally Heider's studio. The live date is fairly cohesive, with beautiful modal piano work from Joe Bonner, Pharoah playing tenor and soprano as well as a myriad of percussion instruments and vocalizing in places, and a percussion and rhythm section that included Michael Carvin on drums, bassist Calvin Hill, and hand drummers John Blue and Lawrence Killian. The standout on the set is the opener. At 18 minutes, it's the longest thing here and gives the band a chance to stretch into African and Latin terrains. Sanders' long, loping, suspended lines create a kind of melodic head that is underscored by Bonner's hypnotically repetitive piano work, playing the same chord progression over and over again as he begins his solos (one on each horn). Somewhere near the five-minute mark, Pharoah enters into a primal wail and the whole thing becomes unhinged, moving into a deep blowing session of free improv. Honks, squeals, wails, and Bonner pounding the hell out of the piano erase any trace of what came before, and this goes on for four minutes before the theme restates itself and once more the magic begins. It's utterly compelling and engaging. "Saud" finds a host of percussionists (including Sanders) along with Hill on tamboura, Bonner, and violinist Michael White. It's a subtle and droning work, full of a constant hum. The other long track, "The Gathering," clocks in at almost 14 minutes, but instead of being a somber nocturnal work it's a lively South African-inspired work that nods to Dollar Brand for inspiration. A gorgeous, nearly carnival piece, it rolls and chugs and runs along on the steam created by Bonner's beautiful chord work. The chorus of vocals chanting in the foreground and background adds to the party feel, but once again it choogles right off the track into some rather angry and then spooky free improv, with a fine solo by Hill. This may not rate as highly as some of Sanders' other recordings for the label like Thembi or Karma, but there is plenty here for fans, and it is well worth the investigation and the purchase. ~ Thom Jurek

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Pharoah Sanders – Love in Us All (1973)

2011-05-30T14:48:37Z

Pharoah Sanders – Love in Us All (1973)


1. Love Is Everywhere
2. To John

Credits:
Pharoah Sanders - composer, tenor & soprano saxophones, flute
James Branch - flute
Joe Bonner - piano
Cecil McBee - bass
Norman Connors - drums
Badal Roy, James Mtume, Lawrence Killian – percussion

Recorded near the end of Pharoah Sanders' tenure at Impulse, Love in Us All consists of two extended compositions. Together, they serve as an aural representation of the way Sanders' music polarized the jazz world at the time. Like many of his "New Thing" peers, the saxophonist sought the sound world beyond the constraints of conventional harmony. This often translated into music played at the grating, far reaches of his instrument. "To John" finds Sanders in this territory. His solo begins with Coltrane-isms of short motive development before stretching out into a more personal sound. Finding himself engulfed by a rising musical tide, he plays like he's fighting desperately to stay above it. Soon his saxophone takes on a sorrowful tone as if admitting inevitable defeat. With little optimism apparent, it ultimately communicates a sense of emptiness.

However, the often one-dimensional criticism of Sanders as an angry, confrontational musician fails to take in the ragged beauty of a work like "Love Is Everywhere." The song offers little explanation as to what the furor was all about. It begins with an exquisite bass vamp that the song builds from. "Love is everywhere" is repeatedly and passionately shouted as the music escalates into a disorienting swirl of sound. Sanders enters midway through with a surprisingly restrained and lyrical solo on soprano. These two songs hardly seem to belong on the same album and are best approached separately. Many of the players who took musical and philosophical inspiration from John Coltrane failed to translate it into resonant works of their own. Sanders' unsuccessful attempt on "To John" falls in this category. Yet, in a way, Coltrane himself never created a work as emotionally direct as "Love Is Everywhere." ~ Nathan Bush

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Pharoah Sanders – Meditation 1978

2010-06-22T22:45:47Z

Pharoah Sanders – Meditation 1978


1. The creator has a master plan   52:06

Line Up:
Pharoah Sanders - tenor saxophone
Duke Jones - trumpet
Bobby Lyle - piano
Billy McCoy - keuboard
Norman Connors - drums, vocals
Lawrence Killian - percussion, vocals

(recorded live at Montreux, 22 July 1978)

Pharoah's classic; and probably his only real hit: "The Creator Has A Masterplan".

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Pharoah Sanders – Wisdom Through Music (1972)

2011-07-18T14:17:18Z

Pharoah Sanders – Wisdom Through Music (1972)


1.High Life (Sanders) – 4:20			play
2.Love Is Everywhere (Sanders) – 5:23
3.Wisdom Through Music (Sanders) – 5:40
4.Golden Lamp (Bonner) – 4:40
5.Selflessness (Sanders) – 10:55

Musicians:
    Pharoah Sanders – Flute, Sax (Soprano), Sax (Tenor)
    James Branch – Flute
    Joe Bonner – Piano
    Cecil McBee – Bass
    Norman Connors – Drums
    Babadal Roy – Percussion
    Lawrence Killian – Percussion
    James Mtume – Percussion

Living up to the promise of its title, Pharoah Sanders‘ Wisdom Through Music delivers just that. Although he made a name for himself as a fiercely expressionistic, almost anarchic tenor saxophonist in John Coltrane’s later bands, the music on this album is guided by gentler passions. More reflective of Pharoah’s Eastern-looking musical collaborations with Coltrane’s widow, Alice, Wisdom Through Music manages to soothe the soul without sacrificing any of the intensity that defined his earlier work as Trane’s apprentice. Much like his previous Impulse! LP, Black Unity, this 1972 offering finds Sanders and his group weaving together cosmic musical mood collages in front of which the occasional solo peaks out. What makes this record so unique is the strong emphasis on song over solo.

Pharoah sings out soulfully as members of the band join their voices together in an all male gospel chorus, creating an African-flavored call and response dynamic that lends weight to the album’s two message-songs, “Love Is Everywhere” and “Selflessness.” Throughout the record, chanting voices float over the music, calling to the spirits. The music shimmers ecstatically with the dancing bass lines of Cecil McBee, the Lonnie Liston Smith inspired piano stylings of Joe Bonner, the driving intensity of drummer Norman Connors, and the wall of African and Indian tribal rhythms provided by percussionists Mtume, Lawrence Killian and Babadal Roy. “High Life (Adaptation of Nigerian High Life)” opens the record with exuberant shouts of joy from Pharoah and the band. The song pushes strongly forward with rhythmic hints of the Carribean mixed in with a traditional African High Life celebration. Pharoah’s tenor belts out with barely contained enthusiasm, giving way to a densely percussive drum break in the middle of the song.

The title track, “Wisdom Through Music,” harks back to Pharoah’s work on Alice Coltrane’s Indo-Jazz masterpiece, Journey In Satchidinanda. “Golden Lamp” is as sensuously layered and entrancing as such Pharoah classics as “The Creator Has a Master Plan” or “Thembi.” The album closes with the generous beauty of “Selflessness,” an 11-minute epic which finds Pharoah finally letting loose, his tenor screaming out passionately until the record spins to its end. This album sounds so good, it’s no wonder that it remains out of print (as the saying goes, “Anything that feels this good MUST be illegal”).

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