Pharoah sanders rip

[Jazzrook]

Pharoah with Don Cherry, Henry Grimes & Ed Blackwell playing 'The Thing' from the 1966 BLUE NOTE album 'Where Is Brooklyn?':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=OpK8Y9zDYAo

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Thanks for that (Giant Steps). Can't say it's convinced me. I think Shepp did go much further in almost relearning the repertoire and language, with better results, particularly on ballads.

It's probably unfair but there were quite a few players around Trane who were 'OK enough", not substantial, but got lucky via the association. But that's just my take.

[Jazzrook]

Interview with Pharoah:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=nc3a7_IKqa0

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

He does seem to have had a big appeal to people who were not primarily jazz orientated. Oddly enough from quite a few journalists I've seen posting today, people I doubt very much would feel the same way (or know) about say Jackie McLean, Wayne or similar. Maybe later Don Cherry is another example of someone who developed this wider persona, and what I find off putting is precisely what attracts them.

Did he do the "back to bop" thing at any time as Shepp did? I haven't listened that closely.

More back to middle period Coltrane I would say - which is odd given that he started out ostensibly as a young cat set on outdoing 'Trane in terms of new sonorities, or at any rate bridging the gap between Coltrane and Ayler - which might suggest a shallowness in the "radicalism" in that it did not build on received ideas about playing over changes or modes, as Trane had been doing for a decade, but rather circumvented such matters. The rock appeal might have something to do with the fact that what Hendrix was doing around that time was effectively analogous, trading on new sounds per se.

[Ian Thumwood]

He does seem to have had a big appeal to people who were not primarily jazz orientated. Oddly enough from quite a few journalists I've seen posting today, people I doubt very much would feel the same way (or know) about say Jackie McLean, Wayne or similar. Maybe later Don Cherry is another example of someone who developed this wider persona, and what I find off putting is precisely what attracts them.

This is a statement that resonates with me. I just feel that anything seen as remotely "spiritual" seems to attract a particular kind of audience. Likes Bluesnik, I am not won over by some of the attitudes and opinions of journalists and I also find this to be off-putting when they choose to focus on one particular aspect of the music. I can remember about 10 years ago seeing fly-posters put up locally for a festival somewhere in the region where Sanders was the "token" jazz act at a pop festival and iinitially being really surprised. Upon reflection, it makes sense as Sander's music was simple enough to be appreciated by an audience not used to more complex jazz. The comment about Don Cherry does seem a bit wide of the mark if you consider some of the output with groups like Codona on ECM or the wonderful "Art Deco" quartet album which is strictly for jazz purists. As I said previously, maybe Sun Ra is a better comparison when it comes to the press fauning over something which is pretty uneven. (Imagine the furore if Woody Herman had made those Disney albums!)

I don't really agree that the "back to bop" thing would mean a validation of a particular player's status although I think it does tell you a lot about a player like Archie Shepp especially when you contrast him with the next generation of players working in that field. I just do not think the Shepp is up to much technically. For what it is worth, I think that Sanders was a much better player than either Shepp or Ayler and whilst his music may be relatively simple, the tone he produced from the tenor was both distinctive and impressive. I would be less inclined to write him off even if his music lacks the "shock and awe" of Ayler but , if you want "exotic", I don't think he was in the same class as AEoC.

[Joseph K]

Now playing - 'My Favorite Things' from Live at the Village Vanguard Again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFl1aguWIwc

I guess I don't have a problem with Pharoah's stridency of tone per se and I would place his style in the same category as Albert Ayler - and in my current state of mind Sanders' style offers contrast to Coltrane's own, without going on repetitively for too long as might be the case with some of the Japan recordings. Otherwise, needless to say, this is an awesome recording.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I was listening to this again last week, I bought "Live in Japan" as soon as it came out as I bought everything Coltrane at that time. I hadn't heard it since the 70s, but the thing that strikes me now is Trane's total control throughout the saxophone range and the lyrical brilliance of his playing. Sanders is in there somewhere. And Trane playing some alto, compliments of Yamaha Japan...

"Peace on earth"

http://youtu.be/pqyznfmsPuk

[Joseph K]

I was listening to this again last week, I bought "Live in Japan" as soon as it came out as I bought everything Coltrane at that time. I hadn't heard it since the 70s, but the thing that strikes me now is Trane's total control throughout the saxophone range and the lyrical brilliance of his playing. Sanders is in there somewhere. And Trane playing some alto, compliments of Yamaha Japan...

"Peace on earth"
http://youtu.be/pqyznfmsPuk

I have fond memories of listening to Live in Japan in its entirety in November 2014 after having come back all the way from London having seen John McLaughlin and being very high on MDMA - and taking the opportunity to roll another magic cigarette during Jimmy Garrison's bass solos that start a few of the performances.

I have the deluxe edition of Live in Japan which features recordings of a couple of interviews with Coltrane. I believe Trane plays alto on 'My Favorite Things' all of which I listened to yesterday. Great stuff.

[Jazzrook]

Pharoah Sanders obituary by Richard Williams:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/27/pharoah-sanders-obituary

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Kevin Le Gendre obit in Jazzwise:

http://www.jazzwise.com/news/article/pharoah-sanders-13-10-40-24-09-2022

[Tenor Freak]

Amazing to think that Pharoah's last appearance in the UK was only a few weeks ago at Gilles Peterson's We Out Here Festival near Cambridge.

[Ian Thumwood]

Yes, maybe now is not the time, but a lot of the later spiritual stuff, the bells, the chanting, just didn't work for me, although I respect the sincerity. I saw him c. 40 years ago on the same bill as McCoy Tyner's trio with Louis Hayes, and while they were utterly magnificent, massive energy, Pharoah was sleep inducing. Maybe an off night or tour fatigue.

I have been listening to loads of Scriabin's piano music of late having many years ago stumbled on his Opus 8 Etudes which I loved but found impossible to play. For much of this year I have been playing his complete Preludes as well as listening to selections of other smaller works. At the moment I am working my way through the Sonatas.

I find Scriabin absolutely fascinating insofar that he took classical piano on a journey that took it's cues from Chopin but ended up hinting at Messaien. The reason I am posting this music on this thread is that it struck me today just how different Scriabin's approach to the mystic was in contrast to Pharoah Sander's "astral" asperations. There are some videos which analyse Scriabin's harmonic language that I am keen to watch but I think there is a fascinating contrast in how both Sanders and Scriabin sought to evoke higher powers and levels of inspiration. I am not at all religious or indeed "spiritual" yet I feel that there is something absolutely genuine with what Scriabin was aspiring to that has total musical depth. It is a marked contrast with how the likes of Sun Ra or Pharoah Sanders have pursued a similar route to evoke the spiritual , the former seeing a bit hokey in comparison.

[Joseph K]

I am not at all religious or indeed "spiritual" yet I feel that there is something absolutely genuine with what Scriabin was aspiring to that has total musical depth. It is a marked contrast with how the likes of Sun Ra or Pharoah Sanders have pursued a similar route to evoke the spiritual , the former seeing a bit hokey in comparison.

Agreed - Scriabin's powerful and sensuous, crystalline colourfulness is much more comparable to late-era Coltrane.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have been listening to loads of Scriabin's piano music of late having many years ago stumbled on his Opus 8 Etudes which I loved but found impossible to play. For much of this year I have been playing his complete Preludes as well as listening to selections of other smaller works. At the moment I am working my way through the Sonatas.

I find Scriabin absolutely fascinating insofar that he took classical piano on a journey that took it's cues from Chopin but ended up hinting at Messaien. The reason I am posting this music on this thread is that it struck me today just how different Scriabin's approach to the mystic was in contrast to Pharoah Sander's "astral" asperations. There are some videos which analyse Scriabin's harmonic language that I am keen to watch but I think there is a fascinating contrast in how both Sanders and Scriabin sought to evoke higher powers and levels of inspiration. I am not at all religious or indeed "spiritual" yet I feel that there is something absolutely genuine with what Scriabin was aspiring to that has total musical depth. It is a marked contrast with how the likes of Sun Ra or Pharoah Sanders have pursued a similar route to evoke the spiritual , the former seeing a bit hokey in comparison.

One big marker of the difference is between spiritual practices which are of non-European origin, which the jazz tradition has maintained in a consistent lineage, and the pan-European. The former involve the full expression of the participant, whereas, in the words, more-or-less, of Steve Beresford, a practitioner in both free jazz and the less corporeal western ethos associated with abstract free improvised music, the individual involvement is more detached, focussed from the neck up, brain-led. I sometimes wonder how the 19th century missionaries must have reacted to the Christian worship they encountered in Africa, the roots of which had by-passed the westernisation of the religion via Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Calvinism. I remember how shocked I was at 16 when we went to see Black Nativity in around 1963, never previously having encontered Gospel music and having assumed Ray Charles was merely marrying up Blues and Pop music! I feel increasingly alienated from what the new Americanj Evangelism has done in debasing that bodily "hot Gospel", with its unacknowledged connections with pre-Christian African worship, Voodoo etc., (which the church was forced to take on board to have its message accepted), into an insipid clichéd variant of Pop.

This is not, by the way, to dismiss non-phyically involved spiritual practices, these being emphasised in Buddhism as an example, although there are of course Buddhist sects which do include considerable physical involvement, as can be seen by footage of celebrations in Tibet, for example; but I guess it's the main reason that the aspects of Christian worship that I still share and identify with as an agnostic when it comes to the main underlying principles are those associated with contemplation and the role of ritual in centering attention and stilling the mind.

There we have it: my first "confessional" on the forum!!!

[Jazzrook]

I have been listening to loads of Scriabin's piano music of late having many years ago stumbled on his Opus 8 Etudes which I loved but found impossible to play. For much of this year I have been playing his complete Preludes as well as listening to selections of other smaller works. At the moment I am working my way through the Sonatas.

I find Scriabin absolutely fascinating insofar that he took classical piano on a journey that took it's cues from Chopin but ended up hinting at Messaien. The reason I am posting this music on this thread is that it struck me today just how different Scriabin's approach to the mystic was in contrast to Pharoah Sander's "astral" asperations. There are some videos which analyse Scriabin's harmonic language that I am keen to watch but I think there is a fascinating contrast in how both Sanders and Scriabin sought to evoke higher powers and levels of inspiration. I am not at all religious or indeed "spiritual" yet I feel that there is something absolutely genuine with what Scriabin was aspiring to that has total musical depth. It is a marked contrast with how the likes of Sun Ra or Pharoah Sanders have pursued a similar route to evoke the spiritual , the former seeing a bit hokey in comparison.

Ian

I rarely buy classical CDs but ordered Scriabin Piano Music by Xiayin Wang after reading your review.
Just wondered what you thought of this by the same pianist playing the music of Earl Wild(sounds like an old rocker!):

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=8t3LFe9lNks

JR