Pharoah Sanders - Pharoah (2023) [Hi-Res]

An idea took hold in the mid-'70s that Pharoah Sanders had lost his way. After the spiritual fire of the late '60s free jazz movement had burned to its embers and many of its most notable practitioners had either died or transformed their playing into more commercial styles (often bebop, occasionally fusion), to hear Pharoah's previously searing saxophone belting out jaunty grooves alongside groovy chants like 1974's "Love Is Everywhere" was to assume that he too had decided to go along. But there is no universe in which Pharoah Sanders could have "sold out" or squeezed his giant sonic personality into anything remotely commercial. (After all, "Love Is Everywhere" takes up an entire side of an album, and, despite its unmistakable infectiousness, is still improvisationally intense.) Instead, Pharaoh kept evolving his style and nobody cared to follow along.

Continuing on the spiritual journey that he'd been on since he played alongside John Coltrane (and expanded on in his work with Alice Coltrane), Sanders' '70s work is sonically deep and emotionally resonant, rather than frenetic and fiery, and this 1977 album is a prime example. While it's easy to see this self-titled record as something of a step down for the jazz titan—it was his first post-Impulse album, released on the tiny India Navigation label, and featured an all-new group of relatively unknown sidemen—it's probably more accurate to see it as something of a rebirth. It's here that Pharoah is unshackled from anything remotely close to commercial expectations and is allowed to dive deep into the cosmic possibilities of his music.

The first half of the set again finds him taking an entire album side to fully illustrate a sonic idea, except here, "Harvest Time" is a somewhat gentle and pensive number, with each member of the quintet (including his then-wife Bedria on harmonium) getting plenty of space to stretch out on their instruments while Sanders provides both melodic guidance and harmonic support throughout. (The effect may be familiar to newer fans whose first introduction to Sanders was on 2021's Promises with Floating Points.) In the second half, "Love Will Find A Way" takes a similar tack (guitarist Tisziji Munoz seizes the lion's share of the song's spotlight with his Santana-esque licks), while the relatively brief "Memories of Edith Johnson" is a slow-burning riot of sound. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz