In like liquid sunshine Shabason stirs

Ringing in the changes, let's hope. Toronto saxist/multi-instrumentalist Joseph Shabason might well seize the moment and the day as a messenger if the rest of birdsong bedecked The Fellowship tracks are as immersive and tactile as the gloriously …

Published: 17 Feb 2021. Updated: 3 years.

Ringing in the changes, let's hope. Toronto saxist/multi-instrumentalist Joseph Shabason might well seize the moment and the day as a messenger if the rest of birdsong bedecked The Fellowship tracks are as immersive and tactile as the gloriously polyphonic chamber-jazz instrumental arrangement of the lushly melodic title track of his upcoming album to be released by Western Vinyl at the end of April. The sound of the EWI (the electronic wind instrument most associated back in the day with the much missed Michael Brecker) makes a dazzling return in one of the key passages. According to the blurb on Bandcamp ''The title track of The Fellowship swings toward relief and reflection, and buoys the mood up to something childlike.'' A bright woodwind voicing certainly slips down like instant sunshine after the rain. You may know Shabason from his part on the mighty Dylanalogical excitation of 'Eyes to the Wind' a dweller on the threshold called to the instrumental hearth of The War on Drugs 2014 album Lost in the Dream (rising up like Shalimar at the 5-minute mark). Or more recently breaking deep into the blue on his own record from 2017, Aytche. SG. Joseph Shabason, top

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Pharoah Sanders collaborates with Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra

Heritage spiritual jazz returns centrestage next month with news of the 26 March release of a collaboration between Pharoah Sanders and in a border-crossing twist electronica producer Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra together on …

Published: 16 Feb 2021. Updated: 3 years.

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Heritage spiritual jazz returns centrestage next month with news of the 26 March release of a collaboration between Pharoah Sanders and in a border-crossing twist electronica producer Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra together on Promises. A 9-part work that Luaka Bop are putting out, Sanders is ''the son'' in the free-jazz trinity (ergo John Coltrane, the father, Albert Ayler the holy ghost) and turned 80 in the autumn.

Floating Points (aka Sam Shepherd, above left) and Pharoah Sanders

photo: Eric Welles-Nyström