RIP Pharoah Sanders (1940-2022)

His third appearance at Enjoy Jazz was firmly planned for the anniversary year 2023. Deeply saddened, we now have to accept that this will no longer happen. On Saturday, a few weeks before his 82nd birthday, the great saxophonist Pharoah Sanders passed away. Sanders was not only a visible culmination of ethno-jazz far beyond the genre. He was also an integral part of the late John Coltrane's band, which paved the way for free jazz. Among other things, he was involved in Trane's epochal masterpiece "Ascension". He later made important contributions to Alice Coltrane's spiritual-universal jazz. From the mid-1960s, he also made a name for himself with his own projects such as "Tauhid" and "Karma" (both published by Impulse!). His work from this phase in particular is still considered groundbreaking today. After not releasing an album for over ten years, Sanders returned in 2021 with a bang: "Promises" is a brilliant collaboration with British electronic musician Floating Point and the London Symphony Orchestra. Andrian Kreye exuberantly classified the album as "sensational" in the SZ. With it, Sanders had found an age-old style that could make sounds speak and pauses sing.

Photo : Manfred Rinderspacher