Pharoah Sanders

2022 - 9 - 24

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Image courtesy of "The Guardian"

Jazz legend Pharoah Sanders dead at 81 (The Guardian)

Revered spiritual jazz saxophonist was known for his unique playing style and collaborations with John Coltrane.

In the mid-2010s, Sanders heard a composition by the British electronic producer Sam Shepherd, AKA Floating Points, and asked to collaborate with him. Although his output began to slow in the 90s, Sanders continued to tour and collaborate throughout the 2000s. Throughout the early 1970s, Sanders continued to release records as a bandleader, largely on the Impulse!

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

Pharoah Sanders, Whose Saxophone Was a Force of Nature, Dies ... (The New York Times)

He first gained wide recognition for his work with John Coltrane and went on to a fertile, prolific career, releasing dozens of albums as a leader.

He gained wide recognition as a member of John Coltrane’s groups from 1965 to 1967 and went on to a fertile, prolific career, with dozens of albums and decades of performances. Sanders drew from his tenor saxophone was a force of nature: burly, throbbing and encompassing, steeped in deep blues and drawing on extended technique to create shrieking harmonics and imposing multiphonics. He was 81.

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Image courtesy of "WJCT NEWS"

Pharoah Sanders, giant of spirit-driven jazz, dies at 81 (WJCT NEWS)

Sanders, revered as one of the avant-garde's greatest tenor saxophonists, was a member of John Coltrane's final quartet. His expressive playing laid a path ...

A patient and meditative album, it sometimes feels like a structure built for the sole purpose of allowing Sanders' voice and saxophone to levitate. In 2021, he released the album Promises in collaboration with the electronic musician Sam Shepherd, who records as Floating Points, and the London Symphony Orchestra that was widely and immediately hailed as one of the year's best. Even given his pioneering work, Sanders downplayed his technical achievements in favor of the emotional resonance he was seeking. Sanders' fortunes in New York slowly but surely turned around as he established a solo career, and by 1965 he was a member of what would be Coltrane's final quartet. "Sanders has consistently had bands that could not only create a lyrical near-mystical Afro-Eastern world," wrote one champion, the poet-critic Amiri Baraka, "but [also] sweat hot fire music in continuing display of the so-called 'energy music' of the '60s." Pharoah Sanders, the revered and influential tenor saxophonist who explored and extended the boundaries of his instrument, notably alongside John Coltrane in the 1960s, died on Saturday morning in Los Angeles.

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