{"id":79567,"date":"2022-09-27T11:38:03","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T11:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/a-church-with-open-doors-the-ecstatic-power-of-pharoah-sanders-jazz\/"},"modified":"2022-09-27T11:38:03","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T11:38:03","slug":"a-church-with-open-doors-the-ecstatic-power-of-pharoah-sanders-jazz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/a-church-with-open-doors-the-ecstatic-power-of-pharoah-sanders-jazz\/","title":{"rendered":"A church with open doors: the ecstatic power of Pharoah Sanders | Jazz"},"content":{"rendered":"
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J<\/span><\/span>ohn Coltrane, speaking to jazz musician Albert Ayler, once described himself, Pharoah Sanders and Ayler as \u201cthe father, the son and [the] holy ghost\u201d. Sanders played sideman to Coltrane on many crucial recordings, and, like Coltrane, Sanders could cut it both ways: roll out a spiritual groove that landed like breakers on the shore, or splice the air itself into a trigonometry of fire and aether. He leant into a broadly multicultural spiritualism in his music, but could take flight in ferocious exaltations on his saxophone. His music spoke volumes, while he himself preferred not to, and is at the core of any spiritual jazz discography. As Ben Ratliff wrote in the New York Times in 1999, Sanders was \u201cone of the holy monsters of American music\u201d. With the passing of the son, the last member of Coltrane’s last band is gone, and a crucial connection to the potent and now legendary New York jazz scene of the 1960s and 70s is severed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Farrell Sanders began by playing a clarinet he bought from a recently deceased member of the congregation at his church for $17. He moved briefly to Oakland, California, then in 1962 he hitch-hiked to New York without a plan. He arrived homeless, essentially, and took to donating blood to earn money to eat. He listened to jazz being played in the clubs from outside, lived off cheap pizza and worked odd jobs, sometimes sleeping in cinemas in the day. He was not alone in this deprivation \u2013 in a review of reissues in The Wire 343, music journalist Philip Clark reminds us that: \u201clearning the vicissitudes of the jazz life, you’re reminded of how thoroughly these musicians were marginalised, socially and culturally \u201d. In a 2020 New Yorker interview he was described as still seeming like just another musician trying to make a living \u2013 which has much to say about the lack of provision for towering cultural figures of American jazz such as Sanders.<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>A crucial connection \u2026 Pharoah Sanders.<\/span> Photograph: Gerald Herbert\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In New York, he carried his horn everywhere in its lumber box. He sat in on sessions where he could, and occasionally assembled bands from musicians roaming the city like him. It’s regularly reported that Farrell was re-christened Pharoah by Sun Ra, but the truth was more prosaic \u2013 it was in fact a name Sanders chose for himself on a whim when he signed union papers. He did meet and play with the Arkestra in 1964 and there are recordings of his sessions with this group from December of that year. Around this time, he also played with Don Cherry and Paul Bley, and recorded his debut as bandleader for Bernard Stollman’s ESP-Disk label. Stollman described Sanders as brusque in that brief meeting: he came in, recorded an album, and left without saying much at all.<\/p>\n

In September 1965, when he was still relatively green, Sanders joined Coltrane’s band (Coltrane was 14 years older than him). He played with him on now iconic jazz albums including Ascension, Meditations and Om. Coltrane died two years later, after which Sanders played with Alice Coltrane, including on her classic Journey in Satchidananda and Ptah, The El Daoud.<\/p>\n

Sanders recorded around 40 releases as a bandleader, and continued to play John Coltrane’s pieces, even as he insisted on cutting his own path. The core of his sound is found in the dense strata of albums made for Impulse in the late 60s and early 70s, which he recorded at a rate of two or three a year, ignoring the label’s instructions about tracks and timings. Sanders, as he often said in interviews, just played. A case in point is the essential Karma from 1969, which includes two expansive long pieces and whose influences and intent are manifest in every element: On the cover Pharoah sits in a seated yoga pose, lit by a pale aura under dancing pink and orange psychedelic lettering From the first moments of side one, his saxophone enters like robes on regal carpets, trailed by a lush forest of shakers, bells and flutes, and followed by vocal exaltations.<\/p>\n

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