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Thread of great moments in Pharoah Sanders's music
Here on the original take of Ascension, issued as Edition II, Pharoah concerns himself in creating soundscapes defined by full and thoroughly abrasive content. Muddy trills elope from the mouthpiece followed by sharp, scorching lines that could almost be construed as vulgar.
Here Pharoah follows Trane's ending of the head of My Favorite Things, bringing the heat immediately. Exploring all sorts of nooks and crannies of the horn and lifting the rustiest weights at the back of the gym, so to speak.
Pharoah may not exactly sound like it here of all places, but I can certainly hear an added attention to melody in these lines, important with a lot of his area gone far away of such terms as tonality. Tension is built superbly with maximum interplay between him and the drummers.
Probably the best introduction to a work I ever heard. Self explanatory clip
Very special display of orchestration, creation through such elaborate design is bound to seeming as luxurious and massive as the ambition of this kind of music conceptually would need it to be. A most colorful marvel.
Incredibly joyous material on this track
This dedication to Coltrane especially hits for the development of the track. Clip 1 is the tender beginning that unfolds unto Clip 2, the emotional storm in which the mourning is palpable, followed by a return to form similar to Clip 1 at the end of the full track
... which is something to be defined best as a celebration of Trane's life.
Utilizing the sound of the tunnel and extended techniques to their fullest, Pharoah weaves a tremendous soundscape, so lavish and enveloping it steals your own very breath.
What a stunning development in this final hurrah of Olé live in the early 80s. Glorious visions dressed in gold and garnered in traces of raw energy.
The version on the album Africa is most spectacular to me, a spectacle compared to the slighter energy burst on Journey to the One. This jump always mesmerizes me.
Pharoah's signature saccharine splashes birthing a new perspective on the horn alone here, magnifying the sound of the very mechanisms in the sax bringing the keys closer to the mic as theyre used. Here to stunning effect.
Most lovely here is solid ass playing that then segways into a callback into his time with Trane, mirroring Trane's signature honky bellows until his own reed abuse takes the spotlight. The man continues to age with splendid grace.
