For the anniversary year 2023, his third appearance at Enjoy Jazz was firmly planned. 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 culmination of ethnic jazz, visible far beyond the genre. He was also an integral part of that band of the late John Coltrane that prepared free jazz. Among other things, he was involved in Trane's epochal masterpiece "Ascension." Later, he made important contributions to Alice Coltrane's spiritual-universal jazz, among others. 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 came back with a bang in 2021: "Promises" is a brilliant collaboration with British electronic musician Floating Point and the London Symphony Orchestra. Andrian Kreye classified the album effusively as "sensational" in the SZ. With it, Sanders had found an age style that could make tones speak and pauses sing.
Photo : Manfred Rinderspacher
Date: September 24, 2022