I can't let this go by without commenting. Today is the 80th birthday of Pharoah Sanders, who is unquestionably the greatest tenor saxophonist in the history of jazz.
I first heard his music when I was in university and his album, Karma, came out. I fell in love with it instantly. Actually, love isn't the right term. His music touched my soul - it was a religious experience. Since then, I've listened to everything by him I could get my hands on and managed to see him perform four times. It's not enough.
Here's a tribute to him from the LA Times.
Best known for his transcendent work with John Coltrane in the mid-1960s and for an astounding eight-year solo run for Impulse Records starting in 1966, Sanders helped define the so-called spiritual jazz movement. Merging percussion-heavy free jazz with meditative ideas influenced by Eastern religion, chants and Sanders’ dynamic, smooth and occasionally skronky tone, his music on albums including “Karma,” “Tauhid” and “Black Unity” stormed psyches with a set of complex, structurally fluid instrumental ideas. Decades later, Sanders’ output continues to resonate with generations of creators, most notably the L.A. scene that birthed Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington, Madlib, Carlos Niño and Terrace Martin.
“He’s probably the best tenor player in the world,” fellow horn player Ornette Coleman told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006.
But don't just take Coleman's word for it. Listen to this: "The Creator Has a Master Plan".
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