Intro paragraph to the
write-up by Jennifer Lucy Allan for The Guardian:
John Coltrane, speaking to jazz musician Albert Ayler, once described himself, Pharoah Sanders and Ayler as “the father, the son and [the] holy ghost”. 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 “one of the holy monsters of American music”. 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.
It was just this weekend (before I heard the news) that I discovered I had not yet transferred over to my smartphone what turned out to be Pharoah Sanders' final release, 2021's
Promises, which was an inspired collaboration with Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra. I got the album copied over to my phone, heard the news, and now I am listening to it in a different frame of mind than originally planned. Still incredible, and a true testament to his capabilities. Just more melancholy now listening to it...
