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Jazz Articles about Pharoah Sanders
My Conversation with Pharoah Sanders
by AAJ Staff
From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in February 1999. When I first heard “The Father And The Son And The Holy Ghost" off of John Coltrane's Meditations, I was floored. I got the same reaction when I first heard Maria Callas sing “Vissi d'arte" in Victor de Sabata's interpretation of Puccini's Tosca. Callas was simply better than everyone else. She was on a whole different level than we were and thus the ...
Continue ReadingEvidence Releases Three Long-Overdue Jazz Gems by Pharoah Sanders
by Robert Spencer
From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in May 1999. Ferrell Sanders came out of Little Rock, Arkansas and hooked up with Mr. Herman “Sonny" Blount, who preferred to be known as Sun Ra and dubbed Sanders “Pharoah." A little later a guy named Coltrane asked Pharoah to join his quintet, and the jazz world at large was introduced to the man one reviewer referred to as “the torch-mouthed screamer of the reeds." ...
Continue ReadingDon Cherry: Complete Communion & Symphony for Improvisers Revisited
by Stefano Merighi
Di fronte a questi gioielli di Don Cherry degli anni '60 che cosa si può scrivere ancora? Si può solamente invitare ad ascoltarli con orecchie ricettive e lasciarsi andare all'emozione, come scriveva Nat Hentoff nelle sue note originali per Complete Communion, senza perdere molto tempo in analisi formali poco utili. Questa edizione della collana Ezz-thetics fa scorrere per un'ora e venti minuti due opere manifesto della poetica del compositore-improvvisatore-cornettista e polistrumentista, che all'epoca coordinava organici smaglianti ...
Continue ReadingNew Year - Mostly New Music
by Patrick Burnette
Time to look at some of the best and brightest from 2021--and the recent past. But, lo! Is that a controversy brewing off in the distance? Sounds like the bastards once again are skeptical of generally received wisdom, whether about funky puppies or critics' darlings. Playlist Discussion of Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders' albums Promises (Luaka Bop) 2:50 Discussion of Henry Threadgill's album Poof (Pi) 17:45 Discussion of Eric Revis's album Slipknots Through the Looking Glass (Pyroclastic) 29:40 ...
Continue ReadingBach-in-Jazz + Concertos & Suites from Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Lateef and Rahsaan Roland Kirk
by David Brown
Bach-in-jazz tunes from Ornette Coleman, Aki Takase and Bud Powell and we'll sample “Promises" an electro-acoustic symphonic masterpiece from Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders.' Then, Yusef Lateef's “Symphonic Blues Suite," Rahsaan Roland Kirk's “Saxophone Concerto," and finally the Exploding Star Orchestra. Welcome friends and neighbors to The Jazz Continuum. Old, new, in, out... wherever the music takes us. Each week, we will explore the elements of jazz from a historical perspective. Playlist Petter Eldh “Kali Koma" from Koma ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane: A Love Supreme - Live In Seattle
by Mike Jurkovic
John Coltrane was moving faster than the speed of sound in 1965. Besides divining his place within the music, the world, his God, he was touring; a two week gig with Thelonious Monk at the Village Gate led to Newport then into a frenetic week in Europe. With the classic quartet plus Archie Shepp, Art Davis and Freddie Hubbard he had just completed the mind-bending sonic assault Ascension (Impulse!, 1966). That anyone could keep up with him or think one ...
Continue ReadingDon Cherry: Complete Communion & Symphony For Improvisers Revisited
by Mark Corroto
Before his departure, Don Cherry was a kind of Johnny Appleseed for what would eventually be called the “New Thing" in jazz. He can be heard in the midst of the innovative work of Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Albert Ayler, Steve Lacy, Archie Shepp, and John Tchicai. Cherry's fertilizations changed the sound of creative music then and now. His explorations into (what we now call) world music opened doors for countless non- American musicians to participate in creative improvised music. ...
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