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 Pharoah Sanders © Quentin LeBoucher
"If there's anyone who has that quality of freedom, it's Pharoah. He's probably the best tenor player in the world." - Ornette Coleman
SFJazz opens the SF Jazz Festival with a "Sacred Space" concert featuring Pharoah Sanders on Wednesday, October 17, 7:30PM at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Grace Cathedral's soaring vault produces an acoustic seven-second reverberation that will be an integral component of this performance which includes Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophone and William Henderson on piano. This promises to be another perfect marriage of artistry and ambiance, as living legend and Coltrane veteran Sanders reprises his sold-out 2006 “Sacred Space” performance.
Ferrell Sanders was renamed "Pharoah" by Sun Ra when he joined Ra's Arkestra. Then Sanders joined the cadre of avant-garde saxophone pioneers of the time: Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp. Pharoah Sanders possesses an instantly identifiable tone that is thick and harmonically rich and heavy with overtones- a sound that can be as aggressive and raspy as Peter Brotzman. Coltrane's later style was strongly influenced by Sanders. Sanders first really captured the publics attention while playing with expressionistic and wide-open free jazz in John Coltrane's late ensembles of the mid-'60s. Sanders' later music has become more lyrical and soulful while continuing to explore new harmonic terrain.
 Pharoah Sanders © Quentin LeBoucher
After John Coltrane's death in 1967, Sanders worked briefly with his widow, Alice Coltrane, and then primarily as a leader of his own ensembles. From 1966-1971, Sanders released several albums on Impulse, including Tauhid (1966), Karma (1969), Black Unity (1971), and Thembi (1971). In the mid-'70s, Sanders recorded his most commercial effort, Love Will Find a Way (Arista, 1977); it turned out to be a brief detour. From the late '70s until 1987, he recorded for the small independent label Theresa. From 1987, Sanders recorded for the Evidence and Timeless labels. The former bought Theresa records in 1991 and subsequently re-released Sanders' output for that company. In 1995, Sanders made his first major-label album in many years, Message From Home (produced by Bill Laswell for Verve). The two followed that one up in 1999 with Save Our Children. In 2000, Sanders released Spirits -- a multi-ethnic live suite with Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph. In the decades after his first recordings with Coltrane, Sanders developed the capability of playing convincingly in a variety of contexts, from free to mainstream, and as a mature artist he has discovered a hard-edged lyricism that has served him well.
"Sacred Space" concert featuring Pharoah Sanders on Wednesday, October 17, 7:30PM
Grace Cathedral Grace Cathedral is located at 1100 California Street, San Francisco, 94108, for tickets, visit sfjazz.org. |
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Thursday, 20 November 2008
