Pharoah Sanders Quartet
The Lensic Theater
Santa Fe, New Mexico
July 18th, 2008

This is my second time seeing Pharoah and what a treat it was to have 7th row center seats in the Lensic which a few years ago underwent a total refurbishment to its original art deco splendor replete with a million dollar acoustic engineering component. This has got to be one of the finest venues in the country for both acoustic and electric music.

As the players took the stage to excited applause (believe me, it's a big deal to get A list jazz acts out here in the middle of nowhere) Pharoah seemed to be preoccupied with his horn. He kept fiddling with both the neck of his instrument and his reed and his furrowed brow indicated that he was not really happy with the results.

But if there was any negative effect from the condition of his axe that night I don't think it was perceivable by anyone but the master himself.

The concert kicked off without any spoken greeting to the audience and first up was the jazz standard, My Favorite Things although they were into the song for at least 5 minutes before most of the audience recognized the song, breaking into applause when the familiar melody line was finally introduced.

And that's kind of how it is with Pharoah. His arrangements for the most part are modal explorations that range far and wide from the melody line and it's up to his mood of the moment if he wants to start with the melody or take his sweet time getting around to it.

But that's one of the main reasons I like him so much; he makes the music conform to his own whims and never plays anything rote.

Besides a short foray into The Creator Has a Master Plan as the backdrop to introduce the players by name, I only recognized 3 of the 7 song and 1 encore, 2 hour set.

The band followed the same tradtional format for every song: they would begin as a unit and Pharoah would take the lead and define the tune. At some point he would come to a crescendo and then leave the stage while the piano, the bass and the drums would all get to solo in that order.

Then Pharoah would shuffle back out sometimes arriving at the mic just exactly in time to blow his first note, reprise the tune and lead it to a conclusion which often would be some kind of delicate fade into a spiritually refined atmosphere that would just hang in silence for a few moments before the audience would break the reverie with applause. It was a very sweet kind of intimacy between the players and the listeners.

Because of all the soloing the arrangements were very long. The opener went for 35 minutes and the shortest tune of the evening was 12 minutes.

So we really got to know the other players. It must be a very satisfying experience to be a sideman with Pharoah as he gives each of his players a 2-5 minute a solo in every number.

Good thing these guys are all virtuosos in their own right because this could have gotten a bit grating. I never thought I'd enjoy 7 drum solos in one evening but I'll be damned if drummer Joe Farnsworth didn't make me like it every time.

He's very busy behind his spare kit (bass, 1 regular tom, 1 floor tom, high hat, two cymbals and a snare strangely tilted to about a 30 degree angle) and during his solos he displayed a lot of creativity using his elbow to modulate pitch like a conga drummer might do and playing the sides of his instruments as well as on the skins. He did some things with his brushes and the cymbals that I've never heard anyone do before.

Bassist Nat Reeves was obviously having fun on his big bass fiddle playing sometimes whimsical passages that got the audience breaking out in smiles. Very much like Pharoah he would be all over the place but returning just enough to strike some well placed melody notes so we wouldn't lose track of the song theme.

Pharoah's longtime piano man William Henderson is a marvel to behold. His style on the keys is every bit as distinctive as Pharoah's tone on his horn.

If I can do justice to describe his unique method of attack it would be to say that his attack is not. There's an almost otherworldy lightness in his hands that keep them floating above the keyboard and when he wants speed he's got it like no one I've ever heard except maybe on recordings of Art Tatum.

It was mind boggling to hear these magnificent complicated flurries of a very full sound, arrising from the grand piano while watching Henderson's hands delicately conjuring the sound like some kind of shaman performing a magick ritual. He didn't appear to be hitting the keys with enough force to make this kind of powerful music and yet it was obviously happening.

At one point during a particulalry speedy passage I noticed my jaw was wide open in amazement and the thought crossed my mind that I was witness to a miracle. It was almost as if the piano was playing Henderson instead of the other way around; like the keys were striking his fingers and repelling them away from the keyboard and it was Henderson's job to return his fingers to the next location to be played back against again and again in so many micro-moments of perfection. Breathtaking.

I only wished that the piano was positioned differently on the stage so we could see him better. His back was to the audience, I guess so he could be in better communication with the rythym section.

What can you say about Pharoah? The man has perhaps the most unique and distinctive tone of any tenor sax player that's ever lived.

His range extends form the most visceral lower register skronk to such sweet and sublime high notes that they sweep you beyond the normal hearing range of your physical ears and take you to a indescribable beyond.

Sun Ra could also do this to an audience but he accomplished it with an approach that overwhelmed you into surrender while Pharoah (who played in the Arkestra for a while and got his name from Sun Ra by the way) seduces you into that musical beyond with a magnetic kind of subtlety that transports you there before you even know it happened.

In one tune that rose to that level the other players modulated softly downward at the end of the song and we were left with Pharoah soloing on just the pads of his instrument. If you've never thought about a saxophone being played without anyone blowing into the mouthpiece but being capable of making music anyway this is what I'm talking about. I've never heard anyone do that before.

But when it comes to controlled blowing Pharoah's sound is like no other. Amazingly, he can play three notes at one time when he wants to and the superb acoustics in the Lensic captured it perfectly.

Sometimes his overtone skronking would sound like the bleating of some type of sheepherd from another planet singing nursery rhymes to their offspring.

If you've heard this kind of free jazz skronking before there are many players that can evoke bursts of a kind of organized rythymic chaos from their horns but Pharoah is unique in that he can bring that tone and not lose his connection to the tune's melodic passages.

Here are a couple of short clips that hint at what I'm trying to describe:





All in all it was a great show although I would have preferred arrangements that comprised more ensemble playing.

I mean, you come to hear Pharoah Sanders play sax and he's gone form the stage for about 10 minutes of each song.

Oh well, it's a small complaint. I don't think an encore was planned because the house lights came up after 3 or 4 minutes of intense clapping and whistling but we refused to leave so the band came out for a short carribean flavored number that surprised us with Pharoah delivering an energetic scat vocal with some playful call and response and he even broke out in some dance moves although I would guess from the plodding way he walks that he's in need af a couple hip replacements.

I found a little clip of this one:



As I mentioned, not being able to recognize about half of the tunes I can't really supply a complete set list.

My Favorite Things, Nozipho, Ocean Song and a snippet of The Creator Has a Master Plan. The set was 75% uptempo and 25% ballad level and there was one tune that I thought might turn into the Caravan melody but it never really did.

If you ever get a chance to go see Pharoah and the boys it will be an evening to remember. Just don't expect the live tunes to have as much saxophone as his recorded arrangements and you will be well rewarded with some seriously good playing on all the instruments.
[Edited 7/20/08 13:40pm]

DakutiusMaximus said:

That's good to hear. Bill Laswell said Sanders is one of the most unpredictable live players. Because sometimes he doesn't feel like playing and he will just sit on the floor and not play his saxophone. I found that kind of funny.



[Edited 7/20/08 13:18pm]

Well, I think that's because he really listens to the other players and he relates to the music he's written in a dynamic fashion that allows for a particular tune to be played differently every time if that's what he feels is happening.

Sure, there are melodies and bridges that will need to be played but the improvised passages between the structured parts can stretch out and meander wherever they want to before returning to the song's main theme.

Laswell's comment reminds me of an interview I read with Chick Corea about when Miles Davis asked him to audition.

Corea, who was pretty young at the time tells how he nervously sat down at the piano and asked Davis what he wanted him to play.

Davis just told him to listen and play whatever he thought would fit.

The band launched into a very dense number and went on in this vein for many minutes. Chick sat there waiting for an opening but couldn't hear one and never put his hands on the keyboard by the time the tune was over.

He was dieing inside with embarrassment, sure that he had blown his big chance to play with one of the absolute masters.

Davis walked up to him and asked him why he never played anything.

Corea responded that he never heard anything that would fit.

Davis smiled and said, "You've got the chair."

Turns out that Davis had been watching Corea for a while and knew he wanted him for his band. This was a test, not to hear if he could play, but to see how he would fit.
[Edited 7/20/08 14:01pm]

DakutiusMaximus said:

Kool...I never heard the Corea story, Thanks!




...

DakutiusMaximus said:

“Don't play what's there, play what's not there.”

~Miles Davis


Nice write up on Mr. Sanders.



tA

Tribal Disorder

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