Pharoah Sanders

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Pharoah Sanders
Reggie Workman, Pharoah Sanders, and Idris Muhammad, c. 1978
Reggie Workman, Pharoah Sanders, and Idris Muhammad, c. 1978
Background information
Birth name Pharoah Sanders
Born October 13, 1940 (1940-10-13) (age 67)
Origin Flag of the United States Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.
Genre(s) Free jazz
Avant-garde jazz
Progressive jazz
Spiritual jazz
World fusion
Post-bop
Hard bop
Occupation(s) Saxophonist
Instrument(s) Tenor saxophone
Label(s) Impulse!
Associated
acts		 Sun Ra

Pharoah Sanders (born October 13, 1940) is an American jazz saxophonist. Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world."[1]

Emerging from John Coltrane's groups of the mid-60s Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound."

Contents

Sanders was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, under the name Farrell Sanders. He began his professional career playing tenor saxophone in Oakland, California.

Sanders moved to New York City in 1961 after playing with rhythm and blues bands. He received his nickname "Pharoah" from Sun Ra, with whom Sanders performed. He came to prominence playing with John Coltrane's band starting in 1965, as Coltrane began adopting the avant-garde jazz of Albert Ayler, Ra and Cecil Taylor. Sanders first performed on Coltrane's Ascension (recorded in June 1965), then famously on their dual-tenor recording Meditations (recorded in November 1965). After this Sanders joined Coltrane's final quintet, usually performing very lengthy, dissonant solos. Coltrane's later style was strongly influenced by Sanders.

Although Sanders' voice developed differently from Coltrane, Sanders was strongly influenced by their collaboration together. Spiritual elements such as the chanting in Om would later show up in many of Sanders' own works. Sanders would also go on to produce much free jazz, modified from Coltrane's solo-centric conception. In 1968 he participated in Michael Mantler and Carla Bley's JCOA: Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association album Communications, featuring Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Larry Coryell and Gato Barbieri. This solo has been referenced by John Zorn and others, as the most intense and inspiring free tenor solo ever put to tape.[citation needed]

In the 1970s, Sanders pursued his own recordings and continued to work with the likes of Alice Coltrane on her Journey In Satchidananda album. Most of Sanders' best-selling work was made in the late 60's and early 70s for Impulse Records, including the 30-minute wave-on-wave of free jazz "The Creator has a Master Plan" from the album Karma. This featured Sanders key musical partner, pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, who worked with Sanders from 1969-1971. Other members of his groups in this period include bassist Cecil McBee and vocalist Leon Thomas, on albums such as Jewels of Thought, Izipho Zam, Deaf Dumb Blind and Thembi.

Then, although supported by African-American Radio, Sanders' brand of revelatory and sometimes political free jazz became less popular and from the experiments with African rhythms on the 1971 album Black Unity (with bassist Stanley Clarke) onwards he began to diversify his sound. In the late seventies and eighties, Sanders sometimes explored different musical modes including smokey r'n'b (on Love Will Find a Way, modal jazz and hard bop. Popular work of the 1980s include the Live in San Francisco DVD from 1981, a rare film of him performing, and the 1981 album Rejoice.

In 1994 he traveled to Morocco to record with master Gnawa musician Maleem Mahmoud Ghania, resulting in the Bill Laswell-produced The Trance Of Seven Colors. Sanders continued to work with Laswell, Jah Wobble and others on the albums Message From Home (1996) and Save Our Children (1998). In 1999, he complained in an interview that despite his pedigree, that he had trouble finding work:

"I don't work that much myself. I would love to work, but nobody calls me. I have to just rely on and pray that I work somewhere.

AAJ: Why do you feel you are not getting work?

PS: I think that it maybe the agencies keep me from working. I have asked many, many times, but I don't know. What is the point? I don't have nothing personal against anybody. I feel like, maybe, it's me. Maybe it's the music, or maybe it's the way I express myself. I know that it may be hard for somebody to listen to me play the way I play, but I don't know. I'm just going to keep on playing and hope that I can do better, play better, and keep learning. I can only try to live healthy and try to live life."[2]

In the 2000s, a slight resurgence of interest in free jazz has kept Sanders playing festivals (including the 2007 Melbourne Jazz Festival), concerts, and releasing albums.

  • 1965 - Pharoah's First (ESP-Disk)
  • 1966 - Tauhid
  • 1969 - Izipho Zam
  • 1969 - Karma
  • 1969 - Jewels of Thought
  • 1970 - Deaf Dumb Blind (Summun Bukmun Umyun) -
  • 1971 - Live at the East
  • 1971 - Black Unity
  • 1971 - Thembi
  • 1972 - Wisdom through Music
  • 1973 - Elevation
  • 1973 - Love In Us All
  • 1973 - "Village of the Pharoahs"
  • 1976 - Pharoah
  • 1977 - Love Will Find a Way
  • 1980 - Journey to the One
  • 1981 - Beyond a Dream
  • 1981 - Rejoice
  • 1981 - Shukuru
  • 1982 - Heart is a Melody
  • 1982 - Live
  • 1988 - Africa
  • 1987 - Oh Lord, let me do no wrong
  • 1990 - Moon Child
  • 1990 - Welcome to Love
  • 1993 - Crescent With Love
  • 1994 - The Trance Of Seven Colors (with Mahmoud Guinia)
  • 1996 - Message From Home
  • 1998 - Save Our Children
  • 2000 - Spirits
  • 2003 - The Creator Has A Master Plan

  1. ^ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/04/19/DDGBEI9EI91.DTL&type=music
  2. ^ http://www.allaboutjazz.com/iviews/sanders.htm

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