Free-jazz icon Pharoah Sanders returns to Pittsburgh
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10315/1102216-388.stm
November 11, 2010
By Manny Theiner
Regarding legendary tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, avant-garde
jazz's tragic figure Albert Ayler once expounded: "[John Coltrane]
was the father, Pharoah was the son, I am the Holy Ghost."
But K. Mensah Wali, artistic director of the Kente Arts Alliance,
bringing Mr. Sanders to the August Wilson Center this Saturday, has a
more personal reason for being inspired by the clean-living saxophonist.
"In 1969, I was a freelance photographer, and I went to Ohio [on
tour] with Pharoah. One morning I walked into their room and Pharoah,
[singer] Leon Thomas and their road manager were standing on their
heads. I asked what they were doing, and later we got into a
conversation about yoga.
"They introduced me to vegetarianism and astrology and herb teas,"
Mr. Wali continues. "The following week I stopped eating meat, and
haven't eaten any since 1969. Pharaoh's one of the people responsible
for my living the kind of lifestyle I do."
Attending Mr. Sanders' concert might not turn you into a vegetarian,
but it'll be an extremely rare experience for Pittsburghers, who
haven't seen him since the long-defunct Jazz Mondays series in the early '80s.
By that time, the Little Rock native had already established himself
as one of the giants of free jazz. In 1964, he debuted as a leader on
ESP-Disk, the hallowed indie champion of avant-jazz. Joining John
Coltrane's band later that year, Mr. Sanders appeared on the group's
most progressive recordings such as "Om," abandoning bebop's swing
and melodicism for a totally freewheeling approach to sound, which
some called "The New Thing" or "Fire Music," but came to be known
generally as free jazz.
Mr. Sanders himself trailblazed some of the most landmark albums of
the free-jazz era on the forward-thinking Impulse! label: "Tauhid"
(which included the amazing lineup of pianist Dave Burrell, bassist
Henry Grimes and guitarist Sonny Sharrock), "Karma," "Deaf Dumb
Blind," "Black Unity" and "Thembi." It was quite a track record for
an artist who thought he'd be playing the clarinet.
"I wasn't even thinking about sax," he recalls from his home in Los
Angeles. "The clarinet was my instrument through high school, since I
saw the Benny Goodman story. But I never heard a clarinetist play in
Little Rock. To think about working in that town, I either had to
play alto or tenor sax, so I could play in the blues bands."
Mr. Sanders has always said he'll never settle for being a jazz
musician, because his background and interests are too diverse -- in
the late '70s, he made a foray into radio-friendly "Quiet Storm"
smooth R&B on "Love Will Find A Way," which featured vocalist Phyllis
Hyman. And back in Little Rock, even bebop like Charlie Parker was
hard to come by. "The only jazz player around was my band teacher,
who played bebop, and I learned by listening to him. He would even
rearrange John Philip Sousa to be more interesting than a straight-up march."
Mr. Sanders had been steeped in the sounds of Ornette Coleman's "The
Shape of Jazz to Come" (1959) and "Free Jazz" (1960) by the time he
met Coltrane. "I joined [Coltrane] to make some money. I had been
playing free for a long time. I wanted to be an all-around musician
to get some jobs reading music and some jobs playing free. You have
to do a little bit of everything."
Mr. Sanders assures me that the myths about his nickname "Pharoah"
(his given name is Farrell) are false -- it didn't come from space
traveler Sun Ra or from the music criticism of poet/playwright Amiri
Baraka. "It was just a matter of paperwork. When I joined the union
in New York City, they had a space for the artist's name, so I just
put [Pharoah] down."
With track titles such as "Morning Prayer," "Let Us Go Into the House
of the Lord," "Astral Travelling" and "The Creator Has a Master
Plan," and broad-based references to Abrahamic, Buddhist and New Age
theosophies, Mr. Sanders' music has gone through periods of deep
spirituality. "Karma," in 1969, has especially evoked the same kind
of shamanistic and transcendental descriptions applied to the '60s
Flower Power movement and gurus from Timothy Leary to the Maharishi.
"I just feel like music is a very spiritual thing anyway," he
explains. "I just play what I feel and nothing is added. I can't just
play something and say, 'This is spiritual and this isn't.' It's
something that you have inside, however that passion manifests itself."
By the '80s and '90s, classics like the side-length "Creator" had
secured a vast influence, sampled in hip-hop and acid-jazz tunes.
"Blues for John Coltrane," an album Mr. Sanders recorded with McCoy
Tyner, won a Grammy, and he worked with master Gnawa musician Mahmoud
Gania, while entering dub-laden realms with bassist-producers Bill
Laswell and Jah Wobble. Ten years later, he engaged in "Spirits," a
multi-ethnic match with percussionists Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph.
Despite all of this varied activity, he complained in an interview on
the All About Jazz site that it was hard to find steady work.
"I think some of it was just my fault," he told me, "because you need
an agent or somebody that can find work for you. I think a lot of
musicians have this problem right now. I'm not a [material] person.
Although I need support, my whole point is to keep learning and
practicing. If money comes, fine, but if it doesn't, I just love to
play the music."
In the past decade, however, a resurgence of interest in free-jazz,
and Mr. Sanders' accomplishments in particular, has afforded him a
few more opportunities, such as playing at Lincoln Center, an honor
usually reserved for Wynton Marsalis' cadre of neo-boppers. He also
reworked "Creator" for the Japanese label, Venus. "We were on the
road in Tokyo, and I was asked if I would do a record," he recalls.
"It was kind of an overnight decision."
For quite a while, most of his public appearances have been with
pianist William Henderson, whose collaborations with Mr. Sanders
stretch far beyond their 1987 "Prayer Before Dawn" duo album on
Theresa Records. "I met [William] in 1959, and I've known him ever
since we used to play at the house and run over some tunes. I feel
like he's the kind of person who tries to better his life -- he's
into health and meditation. He's such a good person. I'm not saying
that he has to play like me, but I love what he's doing, and that's important."
On Saturday, Mr. Henderson and Mr. Sanders will be joined in a
quartet by storied Pittsburgh drummer Roger Humphries and bassist
Dwayne Dolphin (who, according to Wali, has worked with Mr. Sanders
in the past). Mr. Sanders wishes for more high-end work in the
States. "If I don't get it, I have to go elsewhere, like Europe or
some other place where they want to hear my music. I would like to
play the colleges and high schools here."
His move to the West Coast was a matter of convenience ("I got
married, so that's the reason why I'm out here"), with Mr. Sanders
openly admitting that he still prefers New York City. "It just feels
dry out here in the desert. The music doesn't move enough, or maybe
I'm so used to being in a place that's very cultural. Living in New
York City is like going to a university -- you learn more there."
At the age of 70, Mr. Sanders still expresses a desire to play with
musicians from other countries ("especially great drummers") but is
also expanding his horizons into the visual arts, having been a
painter on and off. "I did an exhibition at the Village Vanguard, and
had my paintings right there on the bandstand. I got a good review on
it at the time, and someone suggested to me that I should do it more
often. I haven't done anything like that since, but I guess I could
-- I just haven't thought enough about it."
.
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