~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~
To say that Pharoah Sanders was one of the jazz greats is a dramatic understatement. With a sound that fell somewhere in between ambitious free improvisation and proto-psychedelia, the saxophonist dropped some of the most groundbreaking, captivating and downright enjoyable experimental records of the 20th century. On top of his attractively daunting solo discography, he collaborated with artists including Don Cherry, Alice Coltrane, Sonny Sharrock and many others. Infusing challenging music with a palpable essence of spirituality, he’s behind some of the most emotive woodwind chops ever laid to tape.
Born on October 13th, 1940, Farrell Sanders grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. After jamming along to church hymns on the drums and clarinet as a kid, he picked up the saxophone while he was in high school. Some of his early influences included Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker—eventually those beloved players would be known as his creative equals. After a stint studying visual art at Oakland City College in the Bay Area, Sanders packed his bags and hitchhiked to New York City in 1962, without so much as a room to live in.
In the Big Apple, he hustled hard, sleeping on the train when he didn’t have a place to crash. When he couldn’t afford a meal, he sold his blood to buy food. In this period of willful suffering and radical devotion to his craft, he met kindred spirit Sun Ra, who took him in, gave him the “Pharoah” moniker and let him in his Arkestra. While cutting his teeth in that famously offbeat ensemble, Sanders caught the ear of John Coltrane, who enlisted him for his band and became a sage mentor figure until his untimely death in 1967. Hopping aboard at the perfect time, Sanders was able to perform on enduring masterpieces, including A Love Supreme, Selflessness Featuring My Favorite Things and Live at the Village Vanguard Again!
Sanders was a prolific sideman who appeared on some pretty storied jazz recordings. But his solo output is just as noteworthy as his session work. He started his own ensemble in 1964, which is also when he put out the aptly titled album Pharoah’s First. It didn’t take long for him to settle into an inimitable groove as a bandleader. Within the course of a single decade, he released a hefty handful of LPs, including Karma, Thembi and Lo
In 2020, Sanders released Promises, a partnership with Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra. Met with almost universal acclaim, there didn’t seem to be a question of whether it was going to be his last album; we all just kind of quietly knew. His soulful musicianship rested atop an unusual amalgamation of IDM soundscapes and a recurring neoclassical motif. It remains a surprisingly polished affair, especially coming from a musician whose biggest “hits” are prone to flaunting dissonant skronks and trebly screeches. Pairing ancient composition techniques with contemporary textures, it seemed like a stoic salute to the sounds that came before him and a handshake of respect for some of the best new styles to emerge over the course of his lifetime.
As someone who grew up a jazz drummer, I became familiar with Sanders’ work in middle school. But it wasn’t until college that his albums really clicked for me. The first bonafide art school party I ever went to was at a house with a vinyl collection so dense and packed with rarities, it would have had even your neighborhood’s spendiest record store clerk shaking in their shoes. A few beers deep, I sifted through the stacks of LPs while everyone else loitered in the backyard. Stumbling upon a battered pressing of Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda, I was struck by its album cover and made a mental note to check it out the next day. Giving it a spin while I wandered aimlessly around the sun-drenched nothingness of the Los Angeles suburbs, I was obviously drawn to her harping. But what really won me over were Sanders’ swirling woodwind intonations. My interest piqued, I spent the rest of that semester diving deep into his catalog, falling in love with the heady, sticky strain of avant-garde music he pioneered.
On Sept. 24, 2022, Sanders passed away peacefully at the age of 81 in his Los Angeles home. The cause of death was not revealed by his label Luaka Bop, who broke the tragic news. It’s hard to emphasize the importance of his contributions to the genre he helped simultaneously innovate and deconstruct.
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