(January 2025) Episode 625 is PHAROAH SANDERS – a good example of how this Project, despite its laboriousness, is helping me discover new worlds of music. In this case, Pharoah Sanders’ spiritual jazz. The saxophonist got his break recording on John Coltrane’s watershed free-jazz Ascension album (my favorite of his), influencing him to chart his own path in that direction. Sanders’ sax voice is different than Coltrane’s, and his music (in the late 1960s and early 1970s) became more mystical, incorporating world music and vocalizations. Over the decades, his recordings returned to more conventional jazz styles and even R&B, although he did experiment with electronic and orchestral formats. But to me those spiritual jazz albums are magic.
Favorite album: Karma
Favorite song: Village of the Pharoahs
Compared to expectations: ↑
Recommendation: Pretty much any album from Tauhid (1967) to Village of the Pharoahs (1973).
Opus Project 