The musician was part of the “holy trinity” of the instrument in the genre, along with John Coltrane and Albert Ayler
The jazz saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders died this Saturday, aged 24, at the age of 81. “We are devastated to report the death of Pharaoh Sanders. is dead at peace, surrounded by his family and friends in Los Angeles this morning. Always the most beautiful human being, may he rest in peace, ”his label Luaka Bop said in a statement.
The musician began to get noticed at the dawn of free jazz, in the 1960s. “If you listen to the musicians of that time, you will realize that they changed the music to the chagrin of many. I tried. Maybe it was too extreme, but I won’t give up, because it’s the only way I know how to do things” , he told Estadão in August 2010, when he came to Brazil to do two shows.
Born as Farrell Sanders on October 13, 1940 in Little Rock, Arkansas, he earned the nickname Pharaoh (Pharaoh, in Portuguese) when he played in Sun Ra’s Arkestra, an Egyptian aesthetic group.
Sanders was among those who played alongside the legendary Giovanni Coltrane. “When I worked with John, he never said anything. If I decided to play Congratulations, that was fine, because that’s what I had inside of me at the time. He accepted people for who they were. Period. He didn’t hire me. because I had technique or this and that. He hired me because he liked me as a person. And any sound I played suited him, “he recalled, of his former musical partner.
The result was a spiritualized interpretation of the innovations of Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra. The improvisations were long. They alternated a crazy carnival of solos and meditations charged with a mystical aura similar to the gospel. They indicated a return of jazz to the roots of the delta blues.
After Coltrane’s death in ’67, his wife Alice Coltrane and Pharoah delved into the rarefied and spiritual jazz the saxophonist had left behind, working on themes from Eastern philosophies on albums such as Journey in Sachidanada and Karma.
The other great of free jazz, Albert Ayler, called Pharoah a son in the holy trinity of saxophonists of the time. (Coltrane was the father and Ayler himself the holy spirit.)
In 2010, Pharaoh Sanders reflected Estadio: “Blues is just a feeling. There is no way to define it with a series of notes. So when I play, I don’t play music. I play myself.”
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Source: Terra
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