The legendary Pharoah Sanders, influential tenor saxophonist, revered in the jazz world for the spirituality of his work, for which he had embraced the influence of African and Indian music, has died at the age of 81 in Los Angeles. The musician who marked an era in the sixties by collaborating extensively with John Coltrane, had released his latest work, Promises, last year. The Luaka Bop record company did not specify the cause of his death.
“We are devastated to share that Pharoah Sanders has passed away. He passed away peacefully surrounded by loving family and friends in Los Angeles this morning. Forever and ever the most beautiful human being, may he rest in peace," the label said on its Twitter account.
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1940, into a modest Baptist family, Sanders played clarinet in the orchestra at his black school and frequented the city's blues clubs, accompanying great virtuosos from the jazz firmament who attended the locality, like Junior Parker. In 1959 he moved to Oakland, California, where he joined several rhythm and blues groups.
That was how he met John Coltrane, his idol, who played in the city with the Miles Davis quintet. He then decided to go to New York. It was 1961 and there he came to sell his blood to survive and slept in the subway until he met Sun Ra, a mysterious jazz pianist and composer, passionate about Egyptology and UFOs.
Years later he would join Coltrane's gang and rechristen himself Pharoah. Works such as Om, Live at the Village Vanguard Again or the now rescued A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle emerged from that alliance, where they definitively freed themselves from the corset of harmony in improvisation.
Coltrane died prematurely in 1967, Sanders, who slowly began to establish his solo career, was considered one of his heirs. His are the incredible solos on Coltrane's posthumous album Live in Japan, in which Sanders explores the limits of the timbre of his instrument.
Drawing inspiration from Indian and African traditions to transform his music into a mystical experience, he further broadened the horizons of free jazz. Whether it was Sufism or the traditional music of Ghana, as in his Message from Home album, or taking an interest in Indian musicians like Bismillah Khan, who introduced the shana (a kind of oboe played in Indian processions), or Ravi Shankar, who popularized the sitar. That sound of his, between stridency and voluptuousness, consecrated him as one of the masters of spiritual jazz.
That was a current that in the seventies wanted to reduce racial and political tensions and preach peace and happiness in a joyful religious syncretism. The emblematic The Creator has a master plan became an anthem with which I practically entered a trance when interpreting it.
“My sound is serious: many of the young people have a brilliant sound, but I like it to be serious with more roundness, depth and feeling”, he had said in an interview.
