Album of the Week April 9-16

[B. Goren.]

how many were pre-impulse!?

there was the ESP and the strata east.

i was just listening to that one today-what the hell is it called? it has a funny typo-"prince of pesce" for "prince of peace".

I really like his recording for ESP (Pharoah's First). Another good reason to listen to it is the person who seats on the pianist chair: Jane Getz. Her playing is very impressive but unfortunately there are not enough recordings of this talented pianist.

Edited April 12, 2006 by B. Goren.

[.:.impossible]

Regarding Pharoah's current situation, I read that he just recorded an album with Mulgrew Miller and Bobby Hutcherson. Not sure who else is on the session, but I've read through the piano tuner that this was just recorded in February.

For an update to this style of Pharoah, check out what he did with Adam Rudolph and Michael Zerang, no sorry it was Hamid Drake on SPIRITS. Released by Meta.

Pharoah Sanders: Tenor Saxaphone, Vocal, Wood Flutes, Hindehoo

Adam Rudolph: Handrumset (Congas, Djembe, Udud Drum, Talking Drum,Thumb Piano, Bendir), Bamboo Flute, Overtone Singing, Gong, Percussion

Hamid Drake: Vocal, Trap Drums, Frame Drums.

The first track, Morning In Soweto, is one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. Vocals, but no lyrics. It really is beautiful and you would be amazed to hear what two percussionists create sonically. Rudolph is a master.

Another great Meta release featuring Adam Rudolph from the same year is 12 Arrows.

[clifford_thornton]

Don't much care for Karma, though I haven't heard it in years... I do like a lot of his other dates from the period, and considerably more for whatever reason, especially the Strata-East and Jewels of Thought.

I know Pharoah was playing in a quartet with Dave Burrell, Sirone and probably Norman Connors on drums circa '67-'68, though that particular band didn't record. They did work a fair amount, as I understand it.

The ESP is solid, though Jane Getz isn't the right pianist for the date IMHO.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Regarding Pharoah's current situation, I read that he just recorded an album with Mulgrew Miller and Bobby Hutcherson. Not sure who else is on the session, but I've read through the piano tuner that this was just recorded in February.

For an update to this style of Pharoah, check out what he did with Adam Rudolph and Michael Zerang, no sorry it was Hamid Drake on SPIRITS. Released by Meta.

Pharoah Sanders: Tenor Saxaphone, Vocal, Wood Flutes, Hindehoo

Adam Rudolph: Handrumset (Congas, Djembe, Udud Drum, Talking Drum,Thumb Piano, Bendir), Bamboo Flute, Overtone Singing, Gong, Percussion

Hamid Drake: Vocal, Trap Drums, Frame Drums.

The first track, Morning In Soweto, is one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. Vocals, but no lyrics. It really is beautiful and you would be amazed to hear what two percussionists create sonically. Rudolph is a master.

Another great Meta release featuring Adam Rudolph from the same year is 12 Arrows.

Spirits is a great album, which I only got last month. Love it!

MG

[felser]

The ESP is solid, though Jane Getz isn't the right pianist for the date IMHO.

The album I really like Jane Getz on is the Mingus one she did with Clifford Jordan, though I know her stay with Mingus was stormy and short-lived. I agree she's not really the right pianist for the Sanders date. That to me is an odd album anyways, can't quite make up it's mind what it wants to be, though I do pull it out and play it once in a while.

[clifford_thornton]

Yes, the Jazz Workshop LP with her and Jordan is a fine one.

The band on the Pharaoh ESP is really weird. Considering some of the cats he was working with at the time (Moffett, Alan Shorter, Don Cherry, Byron Allen), it's a wonder why he didn't use the Downtown free crew. Still, his soloing is top notch, and Marvin Patillo swings hard. Marvin is also fine on Sonny Simmons' Staying on the Watch.

That DC sesson for Savoy with Sanders is really good; too bad it wasn't completed and issued properly!

Edited April 13, 2006 by clifford_thornton

[danasgoodstuff]

Personally i hate that "The Creator Has a Masterv Plan" is too long for a single LP side. I own a comp. CD that has an edited version (maybe it's just the first LP side?). I enjoy what's there but don't find myself wanting more. Then again, it also has an edit of "Upper & Lower Egypt" that I prefer. The relative conciseness of the performances on Sonny Sharrock's Ask the Ages is one of the reasons I prefer it to most of what Sonny and/or Pharaoh did back in the day. "Peace and Happiness throughout the land" is indeed a wonderful goal, but merely stating it don't get you nowhere...

Edited April 13, 2006 by danasgoodstuff

[ep1str0phy]

Yes, the Jazz Workshop LP with her and Jordan is a fine one.

The band on the Pharaoh ESP is really weird. Considering some of the cats he was working with at the time (Moffett, Alan Shorter, Don Cherry, Byron Allen), it's a wonder why he didn't use the Downtown free crew. Still, his soloing is top notch, and Marvin Patillo swings hard. Marvin is also fine on Sonny Simmons' Staying on the Watch.

That DC sesson for Savoy with Sanders is really good; too bad it wasn't completed and issued properly!

The way I hear the ESP, Pharoah is trying to split the difference between harmolodic freebop and more conventional post-bop. It's especially evident on 'Seven By Seven,' where Pharoah just throws the ball out the window--Marvin and Bennett follow him straight to the end. Getz sounds like an innocent bystander in the more far-flung sections, and Foster does his best to stay with the groove (sounds sorta like a weaker-toned Bill Dixon to me). I don't think Pharoah was ever ready to abandon the piano--ala Ornette, Shorter, Cherry, etc.--although he stopped short at full-on Cecil Taylor/early-Don Pullen freedom. It's a sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too thing; there will be problems melding a Getz-styled piano player with an essentially anti-piano approach (and it took years for Ornette to re-rationalize the piano into his ensembles). I think the Coltrane ensembles were invaluable toward solidifying Pharoah's conception--offering a 'different' sort of free approach, one where the piano is indivisible from the group dynamic. Sanders always had it in him, but--prior to the Coltrane Quintet--I just get the feeling that he was leaning to the 'wrong' side of the evolutionary fork (Ornette v. 'Trane).

Edited April 15, 2006 by ep1str0phy

[clifford_thornton]

Nice analysis!

[ep1str0phy]

Nice analysis!

Frankly, it just popped out at me this morning. I didn't get a copy of 'Pharoah's First' until just recently--let it be said that, even if the general confusion regarding this music is warranted (and I think it is), it's a lot more than a curiosity. I can't easily dismiss the (ostensible) foundations of a major, major wing of avant jazz (and, for that matter, the ensuing trip-hop/acid-jazz debacle). Listening to 'Seven By Seven'--and even 'Bethera'--again, the harmonies are all there... but the context isn't. I actually prefer Frank Lowe's version on 'Lowe-down and Blue'--but just because, after all this time, someone finally cut a version that knew what to do with the melody.

[JSngry]

What I like about the ESP side is how it documents the process of a player "working it out" in a way that few srudio albums do. Pharoah plays long solos on this one, and there's moments when the inspiration lags. But he keeps playing through them until it returns. Then it leaves again and he goes through the same process, playing until it comes back. It's what goes on in casual jam sessions all the time, but seldom do you get to hear it on a record.

[clifford_thornton]

Very true - I think LeRoi said something quite similar in reviewing it back in '65. I like the Pharaoh ESP and have listened to it quite a bit, it's just a strange setup, probably mostly because of Jane Getz. It would be interesting to hear Lowe's cover of "Bethera," and he'd be the one to do it.

I always thought the West Coast guys - Simmons, Lasha, Zitro, Bert Wilson - knew how to work modal/free piano players into an essentially Ornette-styled idiom (or at the most Trane-ish, still an intersection between the two and leaning on the Texas side).