Starting point be at one with Journey to the One period Pharoah live.
Not out before this double vinyl, CD and digital formats recording for German broadcaster NDR of the Pharoah Sanders Quartet at Hamburg venue Fabrik, a converted 19th century industrial site originally built as a workshop for a company called Hespe & Lembach which manufactured wood processing machines. With the history making saxophonist from Little Rock, Arkansas Sanders, who died last year, are the great gospel influenced modern mainstream pianist John Hicks (1941-2006) - if you know the sound of Cyrus Chestnut, Hicks is an influence; and on double bass, the only surviving member of this band from 43 years ago, Carmen Lundy's brother Curtis (winningly on Fade to Black last year) - and the great New Orleansian drummer Idris Muhammad (1939-2014). Tunes are 'You Gotta Have Freedom,' 'It’s Easy to Remember,' a 20 minute long 'Doktor Pitt,' a tender and quite brief rendition of the Sanders classic 'The Creator Has a Master Plan' and Journey to the One (Theresa) 1980 beauty 'Greetings to Idris' that Hicks and Sanders were on laying the thing down with Sanders in a San Francisco studio just the year before. The material here revolves around tunes from that period as 'Doktor Pitt,' 'You Gotta Have Freedom' and 'Easy to Remember' were also on the storming Journey to the One. Sanders' music is at the heart of what we all loosely call spiritual jazz taken on in recent years by James Brandon Lewis, Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia and many more. This is where the next chapter of unheard material and reissues begins however slowly at first in earnest. Digital version sound quality proves absolutely fine as you would have expected from the ever meticulous German jazzheads at the station. One to get on vinyl for the extra sense of liveness if feeling flush. Out on Friday
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