Pharoah Sanders - 1964 - Pharoah's First

Pharoah Sanders 

1964

Pharoah's First

01. Seven By Seven
02. Bethera

Recorded in New York City, September 10, 1964

Bass– William Bennett
Percussion– Marvin Pattillo
Piano– Jane Getz
Saxophone, Composed By– Pharoah Sanders
Trumpet– Stan Foster

Perceived by many as the inheritor of John Coltrane’s revolutionary mantle after Coltrane’s passing in 1967, among those who looked to Sanders for leadership was Coltrane’s widow, Alice, who featured Sanders on three remarkable albums released between 1968 and 1971.

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Farrell Sanders began playing tenor saxophone professionally in rhythm-and-blues bands in the San Francisco Bay area in 1959, before moving to New York, then the unchallenged centre of the jazz world, in 1962. By 1964, he was gigging with Sun Ra, Don Cherry and John Coltrane, with whom he continued to collaborate right up until what proved to be Coltrane’s final live recording, The Olatunji Concert, posthumously released decades later.

Sanders has never entirely abandoned the abrasive, screaming free-jazz that characterised his work with John Coltrane, but in the late 1960s and early 1970s he was a prime mover, along with Alice Coltrane, in the creation of a gentler and more structured aesthetic which became known as cosmic or astral jazz. During the last 30 years, Sanders has also woven elements of retro rhythm and blues, swing and bop into his music – much as his near-contemporary Archie Shepp, another leading iconoclast of the mid 1960s, has done – but astral jazz remains his umbrella style.

It was practically a rite of passage for avant-garde jazz musicians in mid-1960s New York to make their debut recording for the tiny, succès d’estime label ESP-Disk. Some ESP alumni, including Sanders, then progressed to the heavier hitting Impulse! label – most of them, like Sanders, were recommended to the company by its biggest-selling artist and unofficial talent spotter, John Coltrane. The steaming intensity of Pharoah drew Coltrane to Sanders, and the two went on to record frequently together over the next three years, notably on Coltrane’s free-jazz manifesto, Ascension, in 1965. This early, uncompromisingly harsh Sanders approach – which he was soon to moderate – can also be heard on Sun Ra & His Arkestra Featuring Pharoah Sanders/Featuring Black Harold, recorded live in 1964 (but not released on Ra’s El Saturn label until 1976).

People are shaped by events in their lives-- and indeed, you can pinpoint single moments in your life that after which nothing was the same. No doubt for Pharoah Sanders, playing in JOhn Coltrane's band was one such moment. Sanders joined Coltrane's band early on, and the influence Coltrane had on Sanders was huge (likewise, the influence that Sanders had on Coltrane was equally huge). But while there's a wealth of material out there from Coltrane before Sanders joined, there's precious little from Sanders beforehand. "Pharoah's First", recorded in Setpember of 1964, around the time Sanders first starting playing with Trane, is probably the only such example.

The album consists of two extended pieces-- "Seven By Seven" and "Bethera", performed by a quintet of Sanders, trumpeter Stan Foster, pianist Jane Getz (who burst onto the New York scene before moving to California and pretty much leaving jazz for other music forms), bassist William Bennett and drummer Marvin Pattillo. Each piece follows the same formula-- a brief, Monkish theme statement (written by Sanders in both cases) followed by solos from Sanders, Foster and Getz and either a brief collective improv (on "Seven by Seven") or rhythm section solos ("Bethera"). The music is more in the adventerous hard bop vein than anything else, akin to Coltrane's early '60s quartet work-- Sanders is remarkably restrained, playing melodic, rhythmic lines and only occasionally diving into the extended technique for which he's largely known. Foster plays in the Don Cherry school-- that sort of less-is-more from Miles Davis fused with a substantial amount of inventiveness. Getz is intriguing-- her style is agressive in the vein of a McCoy Tyner, but has that wide voicing that Alice Coltrane had. While these pieces are well performed, they're just not particularly attention getting-- it's decent advanced hard bop, but that's about it.