Arcana - 1997 - Arc of the Testimony

Arcana

1997

Arc of the Testimony

01. Black Money (4:17) *
02. Gone Tomorrow (9:39)
03. Illuminator (6:07)
04. Into the Circle (9:27)
05. Returning (4:30)
06. Calling Out the Blue Light (6:38)
07. Circles of Hell (7:15)
08. Wheeless on a Dark River (4:29)
09. The Earth Below (5:30)

* Bonus track on 2018 and 2021 reissues

Bill Laswell / basses, electronics, producer
Tony Williams / drums

With:
Pharoah Sanders / tenor saxophone (2,7)
Buckethead / guitar (3,5,7,9)
Nicky Skopelitis / guitar (2-8)
Graham Haynes / cornet (2,4)
Peter Apfelbaum / tenor saxophone (1)
Byard Lancaster / alto saxophone, bass clarinet (4,6)

Maybe the heaviest, sickest record I've ever heard, but this is absolutely *not* heavy metal or any other genre known for heaviness. It is a truly genreless work of such distinction and originality that I can only hope to give a tiny hint of its gravity and reality in these casual comments.

At the very least I can identify some of the parts here. Ultimately, however, the whole is a mystery that resides in the mind of Bill Laswell. At the top of the parts list, the drumming is by Tony Williams (in one of his final recording sessions before his death) and it's basically his classic sound of pounding the living shit out of his drumkit with insane virtuosity and nimbleness, pure Tony Williams drumkit shred. This goes a long way toward accounting for the heaviness of this music. Just the drumming alone is a heavy and sick wonder to behold. Listening to this reminds me there was only and will only ever be one person who can make a drumkit sound like this, the teenager who got hired by Miles Davis during his most advanced period and went on to reinvent his instrument. If there was ever a truly bad-ass motherfucker, it's Tony Williams. Behold. I'm not a Williams expert, but this might actually be the heaviest shit he ever laid down short of the original Lifetime stuff. In an interview, Laswell refers to the "velocity, force, and aggression" of Williams' playing in these sessions and it's in a totally different league than the work Williams had been doing toward the end of his career, not to discount the classic Jonas Hellborg album The Word.

Another reasonably easy-to-describe ingredient is the sick sick sick shredding guitars of Buckethead and Nicky Skopelitis. These guys have laid down hours of sick shit over the years and this is totally uncompromised, over-the-top speed explosions and piercing tones. It's not relentless shredding, though, but rather short episodes of hair-raising extremes. And they do a lot of slower, textural, melodic stuff as part of the shifting web of sound.

There are moments when the drums and guitar are both exploding in such a powerful way it feels like the sky is opening up and God is doing that whole dark, cataclysmic "the time has come for my power to be known" geo-pyscho-drama embedded in the theatrical imagery of Judeo-Christian mythology and memetically known to myself and virtually any other inhabitant of Western culture. It's just huge. Cataclysmic. Cosmic. It makes me wanna push the volume knob higher and fall to my knees in worship of the gods of power-fusion sound-ritual-frenzy-orgy-meditation. Sound-worship. It's a religious experience.

If listening to other peaks in the history of spiritually intense extreme-high-octane electric devotional music like Mahavishnu Orchestra is like being attacked by a tiger for a few minutes, this is more like being suddenly squeezed by the trunk of a placid mastodon, lifted to the sky, slammed to the ground, and then stepped on. Needless to say, it's, uh... visceral. But why "placid"? Hmm, it must be all the synth/sampler textures on the record.

Back to the parts list. You've got free jazz saxophone legends Pharoah Sanders and Byard Lancaster (who also plugs in some very fine low-toned clarinet musing) going way out in a few sections, playing fire music on the summit of an active volcano. But this is not some kind of drum/guitar/sax/etc noise blowout. The intensity ebbs and flows and solo passages have a space in the mix that makes them *count*.

You've also got trumpeter Graham Haynes in there adding to the timbres and textures that swirl around, and you've got Bill Laswell laying down throbbing, melodic bass guitar lines, offering more conventional instrumentalism than typical for his contributions to recordings.

All this cosmic fury is embedded in layers of dreamy, drifting, melancholy, slow ambient electro-acoustic and electronic music that would turn a lot of ears in its own right. You've got synths, Laswell's textural, processed bass guitar stuff, etc. Major vibe action. This description suggests something pretty cheesy, I know, but this is the real deal, not wallpaper music.

I think one of the deepest reasons for the effect of this record is the way the more relaxed, ambient stuff is balanced with the sick, out shredding on drumkit, guitar, and saxophone.

Some other things that help include constantly shifting, inventive rhythms driven by Williams. My guess is that Laswell just had him go into a studio and play the the hottest solos he could muster, and then the music was built up around excerpts of that. The macro-scale/supra-sectional compositional structure transcends what you could possibly expect from any real-time performing ensemble.

And now we're getting to the heart of the matter, Bill Laswell's production. For all I know, he might be responsible for the inspired compositional maneuvers in weaving all these glorious parts together in just the right way, but one thing is clear: the man took great music and gave it a sound-manifestation that amplifies its power by a thousand-fold. Never have I heard a drumkit sound so HUGE, so sonically overwhelming coming out of speakers--for better or worse, it even sounds slightly distorted. Laswell pushed the envelope of sonic experience here. In fact, whatever he did blending the different layers of bass guitar, guitar, synths, etc makes the drumkit sound more powerful than I could imagine any drumkit sounding if I were standing next to it.

I don't call myself a Laswell fan--most of his stuff just doesn't excite me as anything more than background music and when I hear about stuff with him I tend to have a <yawn> "whatever" reaction--but between this and a large handful of other achievements, the man deserves to be called a genius. I'm talking about his role as a concrete hands-on sound-organizer and mad scientist impresario here, not as an instrumentalist, although he does automatically go in the history books for playing on Massacre's Killing Time, the holy grail of the Downtown oeuvre, and has done a good share of other ass-kicking along those lines over the years.

The total sound package he created here is just miraculous and every time I play this album it's a profound, gripping experience that makes me think of this in a category of its own. It helps that I like overdriven fusion and Buckethead shred. It helps that I can dig electric Miles at its nastiest. It helps that I'm a big free jazz fan.

It also helps that I'm a King Crimson fan, because some of this music has the ghost of Starless and Red lurking in it. Interestingly to me, this latter aspect is part of its occasional similarity to the Bozzio/Levins/Stevens tour de force Black Light Syndrome, one of my special favorite records that also does something totally fresh and unexpected with aggressive fusion, although it doesn't in any way come close to the inscrutable, mysterious, cataclysmic heaviness of Arc. Compared to Arc, Black Light is polite and clean, but still quite visceral and powerful.

With my attempts to convey the transcendental intensity of this album, I haven't given enough hints of another big part of the story, the fact that this record is flat-out beautiful. I mean, in some conventional pitch-structure way that I wouldn't know how to talk about any better than saying "beautiful" and really meaning it.

Arc of Testimony is one of the last recordings to feature legendary drummer Tony Williams, and its bold, experimental textures are a fitting epitaph to his career. Arcana was formed by bassist/producer Bill Laswell with the intention of exploring the outer reaches of fusion, ambient and free jazz. Like the group's debut, Last Wave (released only in Japan), Arc of the Testimony is a freewheeling, unpredictable blend of electronic and acoustic sounds. However, this record is even more adventurous, since it finds a common ground between improvisation and post-production studio trickery. All of the musicians -- Williams, Laswell, saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, saxophonist Byard Lancaster, cornetist Graham Haynes, guitarist Nicky Skopelitis and guitarist Buckethead -- are open-minded and help push the music forward, resulting in a thoroughly involving, challenging listen.

Imagine Tony Williams, Bill Laswell, Pharoah Sanders, and Buckethead walk into a bar?

You don't have to.

This is oh my God intense instrumental music. Also Tony William's last album before he died.

Spacey jazz rock with a little metal seasoning. So synthymetaljazzrockfusion? Not well known but well worth getting to know.

Pharoah & The Underground - 2014 - Primative Jupiter

Pharoah & The Underground

2014

Primative Jupiter

01. Spiral Mercury 9:00
02. Primative Jupiter 10:39

03. This Ones For All Mothers 12:49
04. Asasumamchn 4:10

Cavaquinho, Electronics, Percussion – Mauricio Takara
Cornet, Electronics, Flute, Voice – Rob Mazurek
Electric Bass – Matthew Lux
Mbira, Drums – Chad Taylor
Percussion, Sampler, Synth, Voice – Guilherme Granado
Tenor Saxophone, Voice – Pharoah Sanders

Cornet player, composer and conceptualist Rob Mazurek is a man of many projects. One of them is of simple design but has many wondering implications: it consists in inviting a historical figure of the free jazz field to develop some work with combined approaches, his own and – because it’s a tribute – the guest’s. After doing so with Bill Dixon, short before his death, he came to Lisbon with no less than Pharoah Sanders, John Coltrane’s companion and one of the leading spirits of the pan-African mysticism. For that purpose, Mazurek crossed two of his main bands, Chicago Undeground (including Chad Taylor) and São Paulo Underground (the Brazilian improvisers Mauricio Takara and Guilherme Granado), adding the bassist Matthew Lux to the mix.

The encounter happened as the final act of the 2013 edition of the most important jazz festival in Portugal, Jazz em Agosto, and this is the live recording of that unique event. It’s one more item in the Clean Feed series established in association with the festival organized by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and a special one. The music is an electrifying melting pot between jazz and free improvised music, with a tropical feeling and lots of electronics, something you never heard Pharoah do, but his tenor sax is all around, as it is his way of feeling and thinking. What a treat for our ears!

Still kicking it out as he approached his 75th year, in 2014 Sanders hooked up with cornet player Rob Mazurek and members of Mazurek’s Chicago Underground and Sao Paolo Underground bands to record the CD Spiral Mercury and a companion LP, Primative Jupiter. On Primative Jupiter, an exuberant meeting of free jazz and acoustic-electric Brazilian music, Sanders continues to defy the convention by which older players play it safe, coasting through their greatest hits. His hard-edged lyricism has never sounded better, even if his solos are no longer as extended as they were decades ago. To invoke a much overused, but in this instance wholly justified word, it’s awesome.

David Murray & The Gwo-Ka Masters - 2004 - Gwotet

David Murray & The Gwo-Ka Masters featuring Pharoah Sanders

2004

Gwotet

01. Gwotet
02. O’léonso
03. Ouagadougou
04. La Jwa
05. Djolla Feeling
06. Go to Jazz
07. Ovwa
08. Gwotet (Radio Edit)

Mixed by Bill Szawlowski at Studio Victor, Montreal, Canada (Oct. 2003).
Mastered by Bill Szawlowski and David Murray at Ventura Digital Audio, Brossard, Canada (Nov. 2003).

David Murray – Tenor Sax
Pharoah Sanders – Tenor Sax
Klod Kiavue – Ka Drums, Vocal
Christian Laviso – Guitar, Vocal
Hervé Sambe – Guitar
François Ladrezeau – Boula Drum, Lead Vocal
Jaribu Shahid – Bass
Hamid Drake – Drums
Alexander Brown – Trumpet
Carlos Sonduy Dimet – Trumpet
Leonardo Alarcon – Trombone
Angel Ballester Veliz – Alto Sax, Flute
Moises Marquez Leya – Baritone Sax
Elpidio Chappotin Delgado – Trumpet

A passionate prolific player with lots to say and the vocabulary to preach, David Murray finds an aggregation capable of burning through the music with him in the Gwo-Ka Masters. Anchored by the ambi-rhythmic drummer Hamid Drake and Gwo-Ka drummer Klod Klavue, this thirteen piece ensemble rolls like an 18 wheeler downhill. Using hyper funk rhythms of Afro-Cuban music, Murray keeps his big, rough sound light on its feet for the fast dance through hurtling beats. Herve Samba and Christian Lavlso slice and dice those beats with clear percolating chords, rubberizing the rhythm. Tightly layered horn sections call and respond, exercising their own take on tweaking the beat. Add Pharoah Sanders on several tracks and you have a second tenor player as ferocious as Murray blasting the groove.

The title track starts at a run with a brief vocal trio, followed by the horns in a cascading arrangement that blows itself out for Murray's entrance. Drake keeps it neat as Murray provides all the ornamentation needed. He unfurls a spiraling ribbon of melody that even veers outside. After a restatement of theme, Pharoah says hello. His solo rides the rhythm, his textured tone easily moving through an expanded saxophone range. A beautiful guitar solo lovingly explores the melody of "O'Leonso," then the ensemble adopts a driving rhythm foundation for Murray's statement.

Murray plays a jocular bass clarinet solo on the slower "Ouagadougou." But after the languid intro, the gears change and the tempo quickens. A quicksilver guitar solo shimmers over the gathering momentum. Sanders and Murray take individual turns before several measures of ecstatic duo improv. As the rhythm section smolders, Sanders takes an unpredictable break on "La Jwa." After a palette cleansing guitar interlude, Murray returns roaming with the reed, a second guitar solo brings the coda.

Slightly offbeat and heavily counted, "Djolla Feeling" features blistering guitar followed by Murray low and seductive, quickly segueing to rampant. The vocalists turn rappers for "Go to Jazz," the results vaguely recalling M-Base. Soloists on trumpet and soprano sax. Again on bass clarinet, Murray navigates the dense riff that is "Ovwa," vocalists and percussionists weaving the beat.

From the opening beat to the climaxing ultra funk of the "Gwotet Radio Edit," Murray and company keep their attention on intensity with this scalding entry to his crowded catalogue.

Tenor saxophonist David Murray & the Gwo-Ka Masters mix together aspects of jazz with African rhythms (propelled by both Klod Kiavue and Hamid Drake on drums), occasional group vocals, a flexible horn section, and Christian Laviso's distinctive guitar. Most intriguing is the opportunity to hear both Murray and Pharoah Sanders taking raging solos over catchy but unpredictable grooves. Freed from playing jazz standards or very free improvisations, Murray really thrives in this exotic setting, which was inspired by his move to France. "Gwotet," "Ouagadougou," and "Djolla Feeling" are high points, but there are no slow moments during the infectious set of danceable but somewhat unclassifiable music.

In 2000, David Murray, in the late 1970s a founder member of the World Saxophone Quartet, began exploring Guadeloupe’s traditional gwo-ka music, a relative of Haitian voudoun. After a couple of so-so albums, by 2003 Murray had the idiom down and released Gwotet with the French-based 14-piece the Gwo-Ka Masters featuring Sanders. The album has so far only been available on CD, but Murray released 33⅓ rpm 12” remix packages of the title track in 2004 and 2005. Both discs are winners, with 2005’s ‘Yoruba Soul Remix’ ahead by a margin. Sanders is in fierce form, his playing, as on Message from Home, sometimes reminiscent of his mid-1960s outings.

Pharoah Sanders - 1996 - Message From Home

Pharoah Sanders

1996

Message From Home

01. Our Roots (Began In Africa) 10:21
02. Nozipho 9:43
03. Tomoki 6:26
04. Ocean Song 8:49
05. Kumba 7:50
06. Country Mile 6:03

Acoustic Bass – Charnett Moffett
Backing Vocals – Fanta Mangasuba, Fatumata Sako, Mariama Suso, Salie Suso
Bass – Steve Neil
Drums, Tabla, Vocals – Hamid Drake
Electric Piano, Piano, Vocals – William Henderson
Guitar – Dominic Kanza
Keyboards – Jeff Bova
Keyboards, Vocals – Bernie Worrell
Kora, Vocals – Foday Musa Suso
Percussion, Congas, Bells, Gong, Vocals – Aiyb Dieng
Saxophone, Flute, Bells, Vocals, Singing Bowls – Pharoah Sanders
Violin – Michael White

Producer – Bill Laswell

Out of the number of collaborations between Pharoah Sanders and Bill Laswell, this 1996 release is the most satisfying. The roots of the rhythms, instruments and vocals are strongly based on African traditions, with Sanders as the wise storyteller who refuses to allow history to be rewritten through the pens and keyboards of the manipulators in the political game, the conquerors in the resource wars and the slave traders who left trails soaked in tears.

Though the bolstered sound is through a variety of musicians and vocalists, the nucleus surrounding Sanders (tenor and soprano sax, flutes, bells, bowls, vocals) is Bernie Worrell (keyboards, vocals), Michael White (violin), William Henderson (acoustic/electric piano, vocals), Foday Musa Suso (vocals, kora, doussn'gouni) and Dominic Kanza (guitar). The programming is by Jeff Bova, who also performs on keyboards.

The central track is Ocean Song (8:49), which emits such sadness due to the soft waves and cool winds being used to destroy societies for unbridled greed; Sanders is calling back to the spirits and allowing them the space to journey through the false chronicles to calmly explain the reality. The song fades into the optimistic Kumba (7:50) and joyous closer Country Mile (6:03). A Sun Ra-flavored opener - Our Roots (Began in Africa) - has a powerful hip-hop groove over the solid 10:21, which propels the opening half of the musical sojourn - Nozipho (9:43) and Tomoki (6:26) - as Laswell is at his studio best; his "Wall of the World Sound" does not overpower the mix.

In the mid 1990s, Sanders hooked up with producer and electric bassist Bill Laswell and his Material posse, live and in the studio. The best of the studio projects were the albums Message from Home, an often-overlooked masterpiece, and Save Our Children (Verve US, 1998). Recorded with an 11-piece band including Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso, Senegalese percussionist Aiyb Dieng and Parliament/Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell, Message from Home focuses on African rhythms laced with hip hop. Sanders makes several returns to the ferocity of 1964’s Pharoah. Save Our Children, featuring percussionists Trilok Gurtu and Zakir Hussain, also burns brightly.

The message from Sanders is clear...when the eyes are open and ears are prepared to handle the truth.

Pharoah Sanders - 1987 - Africa

Pharoah Sanders

1987

Africa

01. You've Got To Have Freedom 10:01
02. Naima 5:26
03. Origin 6:50
04. Speak Low 8:04
05. After The Morning 6:29
06. Africa 8:20

Bass – Curtis Lundy
Drums – Idris Muhammed
Piano – John Hicks
Tenor Saxophone – Pharoah Sanders

Recorded 11th March 1987 at Studio 44, Monster, Holland.

Pharoah Sanders delivers some of his usual avant-garde sound on saxophone, coaxing everything he can out of it, especially on the opening track 'You've Got to Have Freedom'. Africa is a mix of post-bop and avant-garde jazz. It's a tribute to Sanders mentor John Coltrane, and Sanders sounds a bit like Coltrane sometimes, Sanders playing mostly his own compositions though, others are Coltrane compositions. If you like drummer Idris Muhammad he's on Africa as well, I seem to be drawn to lots of his stuff, including a few solo albums. Pianist John Hicks is good, not McCoy Tyner good, but you notice him a lot. Some of the tracks on this album suit a late-night cocktail lounge, with only you drinking at the bar, you and your memories. The album title Africa is the title of a Pharoah Sanders written piece on this album, a very typical avant-garde Sanders with chanting as an intro, then some smooth groove in the middle, a pretty cool over eight minute track. A real smoky slower number 'Heart To Heart' shows Sanders can be subdued and romantic and John Hicks plays some beautiful jazz piano. The last track 'Duo' has one of my favourite drummers Idris Muhammad and Sanders jamming hot and heavy, just them, guess that's why this avant-garde track is called "Duo". So, there you have it, a real split sound on this album but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Pharoah Sanders is a great explorer, and his creative powers are quite apparent on Africa.

John Hicks and Idris Muhammad are heard again on Africa, Sanders’ first post-Theresa album. ‘You’ve Got to Have Freedom’ is revisited and given an extended 10-minute playing time, alongside another live staple, ‘Africa’ itself. The Coltrane original is another lovely ballad, ‘Naima,’ from Coltrane’s 1959 Atlantic album, Giant Steps. Recorded in Holland during a European tour, the line-up on Africa is typical of Sanders’ touring bands of the 1980s and early 1990s, using a quartet format. The music is, consequently, less ornamented than on most of Sanders’ studio recordings, where sextets, septets or larger lineups have been the norm, but remains every bit as compelling.

Pharoah Sanders - 1980 - Journey To The One

Pharoah Sanders

1980

Journey To The One

01. Greetings To Idris 7:25
02. Doktor Pitt 12:03
03. Kazuko (Peace Child) 8:05
04. After The Rain 5:32
05. Soledad 4:53
06. You've Got To Have Freedom 8:03
07. Yemenja 5:32
08. Easy To Remember 6:22
09. Think About The One 4:11
10. Bedria 10:23

Pharoah Sanders: tenor saxophone, producer, sleigh bells
Eddie Henderson: flugelhorn
John Hicks: piano
Joe Bonner: piano, electric piano
Bedria Sanders: harmonium
Paul Arslanian: harmonium, wind chimes
Mark Isham: synthesizer
James Pomerantz: sitar
Yoko Ito Gates: koto
Chris Hayes: guitar
Carl Lockett: guitar
Ray Drummond: bass
Joy Julks: bass
Idris Muhammad: drums
Randy Merritt: drums
Phil Ford: tabla
Babatunde: shekere, congas
Dee Dee Dickerson: vocals
Bobby McFerrin: vocals
Vicki Randle: vocals
Ngoh Spencer: vocals
Claudette Allen: lead vocals

Pharoah Sanders possesses one of the most distinctive tenor saxophone sounds in jazz. Harmonically rich and heavy with overtones, Sanders' sound can be as raw and abrasive as it is possible for a saxophonist to produce. Yet, Sanders is highly regarded to the point of reverence by a great many jazz fans. Although he made his name with expressionistic, nearly anarchic free jazz in John Coltrane's late ensembles of the mid-'60s, Sanders' later music is guided by more graceful concerns. In the free-time, ultra-dense cauldron that was Coltrane's last artistic stand, Sanders relied heavily on the non-specific pitches and timbral distortions pioneered by Albert Ayler and further developed by Coltrane himself. The hallmarks of Sanders' playing at that time were naked aggression and unrestrained passion. In the years after Coltrane's death, however, Sanders explored other, somewhat gentler and perhaps more cerebral avenues -- without, it should be added, sacrificing any of the intensity that defined his work as an apprentice to Coltrane.

Pharoah Sanders (a corruption of his given name, Ferrell Sanders) was born into a musical family. Both his mother and father taught music, his mother privately and his father in public schools. Sanders' first instrument was the clarinet, but he switched to tenor sax as a high school student, under the influence of his band director, Jimmy Cannon. Cannon also exposed Sanders to jazz for the first time. Sanders' early favorites included Harold Land, James Moody, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane. As a teenager, he played blues gigs for ten and 15 dollars a night around Little Rock, backing such blues greats as Bobby "Blue" Bland and Junior Parker. After high school, Sanders moved to Oakland, CA, where he lived with relatives. He attended Oakland Junior College, studying art and music. Known in the San Francisco Bay Area as "Little Rock," Sanders soon began playing bebop, rhythm & blues, and free jazz with many of the region's finest musicians, including fellow saxophonists Dewey Redman and Sonny Simmons, as well as pianist Ed Kelly and drummer Smiley Winters. In 1961, Sanders moved to New York, where he struggled. Unable to make a living with his music, Sanders took to pawning his horn, working non-musical jobs, and sometimes sleeping on the subway. During this period he played with a number of free jazz luminaries, including Sun Ra, Don Cherry, and Billy Higgins. Sanders formed his first group in 1963, with pianist John Hicks (with whom he would continue to play off-and-on into the '90s), bassist Wilbur Ware, and drummer Higgins. The group played an engagement at New York's Village Gate. A member of the audience was John Coltrane, who apparently liked what he heard. In late 1964, Coltrane asked Sanders to sit in with his band. By the next year, Sanders was playing regularly with the Coltrane group, although he was never made an official member of the band. Coltrane's ensembles with Sanders were some of the most controversial in the history of jazz. Their music, as represented by the group's recordings -- Om, Live at the Village Vanguard Again, and Live in Seattle among them -- represents a near total desertion of traditional jazz concepts, like swing and functional harmony, in favor of a teeming, irregularly structured, organic mixture of sound for sound's sake. Strength was a necessity in that band, and as Coltrane realized, Sanders had it in abundance.

Sanders made his first record as a leader in 1964 for the ESP label. After John Coltrane's death in 1967, Sanders worked briefly with his widow, Alice Coltrane. From the late '60s, he worked primarily as a leader of his own ensembles. From 1966-1971, Sanders released several albums on Impulse, including Tauhid (1966), Karma (1969), Black Unity (1971), and Thembi (1971). In the mid-'70s, Sanders recorded his most commercial effort, Love Will Find a Way (Arista, 1977); it turned out to be a brief detour. From the late '70s until 1987, he recorded for the small independent label Theresa. From 1987, Sanders recorded for the Evidence and Timeless labels. The former bought Theresa records in 1991 and subsequently re-released Sanders' output for that company. In 1995, Sanders made his first major-label album in many years, Message From Home (produced by Bill Laswell for Verve). The two followed that one up in 1999 with Save Our Children. In 2000, Sanders released Spirits -- a multi-ethnic live suite with Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph. In the decades after his first recordings with Coltrane, Sanders developed into a more well-rounded artist, capable of playing convincingly in a variety of contexts, from free to mainstream. Some of his best work is his most accessible. As a mature artist, Sanders discovered a hard-edged lyricism that has served him well.

Formerly a Theresa double LP, this single CD contains all ten of Pharoah Sanders's performances from the sessions. As usual, Sanders shifts between spiritual peace and violent outbursts in his tenor solos. The backup group changes from track to track but often includes pianist John Hicks, bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Idris Muhammad. Sanders really recalls his former boss John Coltrane on "After the Rain" (taken as a duet with pianist Joe Bonner) and a romantic "Easy to Remember"; other highpoints include "You've Got to Have Freedom" (which has Bobby McFerrin as one of the background singers) and the exotic "Kazuko" on which Sanders is accompanied by kato, harmonium and wind chimes.

After he left Impulse!, Sanders’ recorded output slowed for a few years as he label-hopped between Strata-East, India Navigation, Arista and Nova, to relatively-underwhelming effect. From 1980, however, things looked up again, after Sanders found a congenial home at Theresa, for which he recorded exclusively until 1987. The double album Journey To The One featured two band members who would regularly be heard on Sanders’ recordings through the 1980s, pianist John Hicks and drummer Idris Muhammad (who first recorded with Sanders on 1970’s Jewels of Thought). It also introduced a feature of practically all Sanders’ future albums, a John Coltrane original. On Journey To The One it’s the gorgeous ballad ‘After the Rain,’ from Coltrane’s 1963 Impulse! album Impressions. Another highlight is Sanders’ own ‘You’ve Got to Have Freedom,’ which continues to be a staple of his live appearances.

Pharoah Sanders - 1972 - Black Unity

Pharoah Sanders

1972

Black Unity

01. Black Unity [37:21]

Pharoah Sanders - tenor saxophone, balaphone
Hannibal Marvin Peterson - trumpet
Carlos Garnett - tenor saxophone
Joe Bonner - piano
Cecil McBee - bass
Stanley Clarke - bass
Norman Connors - drums
Billy Hart - drums
Lawrence Killian - congas, talking drums, balaphone

Recorded at A & R Recording Studios, New York City on November 24, 1971

During the 1960s, many new and exciting musical movements emerged. Psychedelic rock is of course the first that comes to mind, but it was also the decade of a new kind of jazz music, where the musicians tried to get rid of the old rules of the genre to create transcendental sounds: free jazz.

Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders is one of the most well-known representatives of this genre. Originally playing for John Coltrane, most notably on his masterpiece Ascension, Sanders then created his own band to bring to the world his vision of a universal black music, expressed through the form of free jazz.

Keep in mind that free jazz was not only a new free music, but also a way to convey a political statement, that is the affirmation of black people’s rights. Many free jazz musicians used this theme of Black Unity and underlined the necessity of a shared identity in every black man to finally get the rights they deserved.

Musically, Black Unity is one long improvisational piece that revolves around a single bass lick. The formation here is extended, as there are two drummers (as well as a percussionist) and two bassists who offer an incredible groove throughout the whole album. The presence of two bassists allows both of them to offer variations of the riff and punctuation of the phrase, and it gives an impression of stillness and movement at the same time that structures the piece. The theme is repeated through a cacophony of drums and percussions, adding to this impression of movement as the rhythm is always evolving. The African percussions such as the lovely balaphone add a tribal feel to this senses-overload. We are in the middle of a sacred African ritual.

The layered sounds of the melodic instruments (two saxophones, one trumpet and a piano) do the rest of the job, with each element coming and going, reminding me of the pop side of the avant-garde (namely the 1960s experimental bands like White Noise or The United States of America). It sounds almost like a trip, with new things always happening around you and much information’s continuously going to your brain.

The intensity of the music is not one-directional, as it is slowly moving, going to peaks, and then coming down to reach a new phase. The furious soloing of the trumpeter and the saxophonists punctuate those peaks. Pharoah Sanders tenor solos are, as usual, completely out there, very aggressive and yet very beautiful and full of spirit. It reeks of devotion to the music and the cause.

It is most definitely the rawest I know of him, and probably the less prepared. It is an example of the power of improvisation and the liberty it gives to the performers. It definitely favors a transcendental music, that get rids of the brain to just let emotions and energy lead. Black Unity is a collective mystic experience and a trip back to the roots of Humanity. This is not only an African music, but also Universal music, Human music, a chant that takes the listener back to the roots of the world.

The only comparison I see with another album is Free Jazz by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet: it is also one improvisational piece with an extended formation, very brilliant all the same but with very different inspirations and aspirations.

Alice Coltrane - 1970 - Ptah, The El Daoud

Alice Coltrane

1970

Ptah, The El Daoud

01. Ptah, The El Daoud 13:58
02. Turiya & Ramakrishna 8:19
03. Blue Nile 6:58
04. Mantra 16:33

Bass – Ron Carter
Drums – Ben Riley
Piano, Harp, Written-By – Alice Coltrane
Tenor Saxophone, Alto Flute – Joe Henderson
Tenor Saxophone, Alto Flute, Bells – Pharoah Sanders

Sometimes written off as an also-ran to her more famous husband, Alice Coltrane's work of the late '60s and early '70s shows that she was a strong composer and performer in her own right, with a unique ability to impregnate her music with spirituality and gentleness without losing its edges or depth. Ptah, The El Daoud is a truly great album, and listeners who surrender themselves to it emerge on the other side of its 46 minutes transformed. From the purifying catharsis of the first moments of the title track to the last moments of "Mantra," with its disjointed piano dance and passionate ribbons of tenor cast out into the universe, the album resonates with beauty, clarity, and emotion. Coltrane's piano solo on "Turiya and Ramakrishna" is a lush, melancholy, soothing blues, punctuated only by hushed bells and the sandy whisper of Ben Riley's drums and later exchanged for an equally emotive solo by bassist Ron Carter. "Blue Nile" is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; Coltrane's sweeping flourishes on the harp nestle in perfectly with flute solos by Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson to produce a warm cocoon of sound that is colored by evocations of water, greenness, and birds. Perhaps as strong as the writing here, though, are the performances that Coltrane coaxes from her sidemen, especially the horn players. Joe Henderson, who can always be counted on for technical excellence, gives a performance that is simply on a whole other level from much of his other work -- freer, more open, and more fluid here than nearly anywhere else. Pharoah Sanders, who at times with John Coltrane seemed like a magnetic force of entropy, pulling him toward increasing levels of chaos, shows all of the innovation and spiritual energy here that he is known for, with none of the screeching. Overlooked and buried for years in obscurity, this album deserves to be embraced for the gem it is.

OK, it’s not a Sanders album, but he is fundamental to its success. Musically and spiritually, singly or together, Sanders and Alice Coltrane, were on the same page and between them laid down the astral-jazz paradigm. Ptah, The El Daoud is one of three Impulse! albums released under the harpist/pianist’s leadership on which Sanders is featured (the others are 1968’s A Monastic Trio and 1971’s Journey in Satchidananda). On Ptah, The El Daoud, Sanders, on tenor saxophone, alto flute and bells, is heard alongside Joe Henderson, also on tenor saxophone and alto flute. A jewel of an album.

Pharoah Sanders - 1969 - Karma

Pharoah Sanders

1969

Karma

01. The Creator Has A Master Plan
02. Colors

Bass – Reggie Workman, Richard Davis (2) (tracks: A, B1), Ron Carter (tracks: B2)
Drums – William Hart (tracks: A, B1), Frederick Waits (tracks: B2)
Flute – James Spaulding (tracks: A, B1)
French Horn – Julius Watkins
Piano – Lonnie L. Smith Jr.
Tenor Saxophone – Pharoah Sanders
Vocals, Percussion – Leon Thomas

John Coltrane left behind a legacy of experimental and extremely spiritual work whose timeless quality still reverberates today. After his untimely death many poseurs came out to stake their claim as the next Coltrane. Many tried and many failed. Then in 1969 a former sideman of Coltrane's, Pharoah Sanders, stepped out from the shadow of his mentor and recorded Karma, which bore the soul of Coltrane's musical and spiritual passion.

Karma was released four years after his first record as a leader, Pharoah's First (1965). While working with Coltrane, Sanders began to develop an aggressive tone that ripped into an anarchaotic passion owing as much to Coltrane as Albert Ayler. His records as a leader did not always reflect the raw energy that would show up on Coltrane classics such as Ascension. His 1966 Impulse! debut, Tauhid, is a great example of this. Sanders let the work take on a generalized groove that worked with the mood created in each piece. In doing so, he created not only his best pre-Karma record, but one of his finest overall. After Coltrane's death, Pharoah worked with his widow Alice before setting to work on what would become Karma.

As with many records of the mid to late-'60s/early '70s, Karma is based primarily around the first of two album tracks, "The Creator Has a Master Plan." The track is one of the finest and best-executed and edited jams ever caught on record, though many critics would and will argue with that statement. The master plan of tracks on contemporaneous Miles Davis records like In a Silent Way or Bitches Brew was created by the editing and production efforts of Teo Maceo. Recordings like Free Jazz or Ascension, in contrast, worked by virtue of the way they tore down sonic and musical boundaries. Sanders incorporates these values into "The Creator," making it more than just a loose jam; no matter where Sanders goes, he is in total control. Even as the piece peaks into volatile eruptions roughly sixteen minutes in, he saddles the passion and works the track back into the initial groove that was comprised its first movement.

"Creator" comes in at 32:47 and wastes not a single note. Opening with a virtual rush of sound, it then quiets down and drops a brief riff from A Love Supreme. The tune then works itself into a groove that would later be known as acid jazz, working with Eastern percussion and allowing the bass to float close to the front of the mix. This first section relies on a modal two-chord structure that keeps the tone bouncy and meditative. At eight minutes Leon Thomas begins a chant-like vocal that varies lines from the mantra "The creator has a master plan, peace and love for every man." The vocals drop and the third movement becomes an unrelenting Coltranesque blitz that tears the mellow mood apart, only to combine the angst and mellowness in the next movement and settle back into a reprise of the first fourteen minutes.

"Colors," on the other hand, is a shorter and more structured piece that features some solid and well-executed chops. Again Leon Thomas sings, and Ron Carter takes over the duties of Richard Davis and Reggie Workman.

Love or hate the music of Pharoah Sanders, you cannot deny the man's vision after hearing this record. His is an absolute genius approach to arrangement and performance. Though Sanders would release many great records and even mellow his distinctive tenor sound down, Karma is a record that deserves to be heard by any serious jazz fan.

If Tauhid is Sanders’ best Impulse! album, Karma is his best known, thanks to the 33-minute track ‘The Creator Has a Master Plan,’ featuring vocalist Leon Thomas. In truth, Thomas’ chanted iterations of the track title tread too fine a line between the hypnotic and the monotonous, but it’s a small price to pay for the richness of everything else that’s going on, including the contributions of another new recruit, pianist Lonnie Liston Smith. Like Tauhid, Karma benefited from being produced by Impulse! house producer, Bob Thiele, then on the cusp of leaving the label, and has an audio quality sometimes missing from Sanders’ later Impulse! discs...

Pharoah Sanders - 1967 - Tauhid

Pharoah Sanders

1967

Tauhid

01. Upper Egypt & Lower Egypt 17:00
02. Japan 3:29
03. Aum / Venus / Capricorn Rising 14:52

Bass – Henry Grimes
Drums – Roger Blank
Guitar – Sonny Sharrock
Percussion – Nat Bettis
Piano – Dave Burrell
Tenor Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Piccolo Flute, Vocals – Pharoah Sanders

Original stereo pressing with orange & black labels, "A Product of ABC Records Inc.", and VAN GELDER stamp in runouts.

This album has been enormously influential and important over the years to not only jazz-lovers as a whole but also to many musicians/arrangers/producers from across many genres. It is also an excellent example of the results of complete artistic freedom. Such was the context given to the artists that Impulse producer Bob Theile afforded them, when they came to do their thing in the studio for this ABC/Paramount label in the 60's.

This album has a feel of confidence and charge which allows it an accessibility and artistic integrity that shines through immediately upon each listening some 44 years after its original release. Sublime arrangements and playing abound it in it. From the swooping and ritualistic blowing of Sanders horn to the grooves in the double bass to the beautifully placed guitar of Sonny Sharrock and multifarious percussion this is just one mighty recording.

It is clear to understand how it pushed and enlivened the creativity and exploration by the Detroit scene of the late 60's a la MC5 and Stooges, let alone the countless other artists and players who have heard it since. One special note to be made is that of the piano used to brilliant counterpoint usage with its delicate opening to the the calm from the storm of 'Upper Egypt & Lower Egypt'. The chordal placements of the piano are used with much grace and restraint and amply demonstrated in the dynamics and voicings used throughout. 'Tauhid' is a true classic with a beauty, import and urgency that shines as clearly now as it did in 1967.

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.

With Coltrane, Sanders continued to explore the outer limits of saxophonics. But on Tauhid, recorded in 1966 and the first of 11 albums which Sanders released on Impulse! before leaving the label six years later, he shifted into a mellower gear. From Tauhid onwards, Sanders tempered his multiphonics and high harmonics with catchy tunes, serene vamps, exotic wind and percussion instruments, a meditative vibe and a gruff rather than paint-stripping tone. Tauhid remains the best of Sanders’ Impulse! recordings, largely for the exquisite beauty of its opener, the 16-minute ‘Upper Egypt & Lower Egypt’. Free-jazz guitar pioneer Sonny Sharrock shines on what, sadly, was to be his only Sanders date other than 1969’s rambling Izipho Zam (unreleased until 1973, when Strata-East picked it up).

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.