Pharoah Sanders (tenor sax, bells, vocals), Joe Bonner (piano, vocals), Peter Jujii (guitar, vocals), Jorge Pomar (bass, vocals), Babatunde Lea (drums, bells, shekere, vocals) and Big Black (congas). From the album Rejoice (1981).
In the late 1950s, Sanders slipped into local African-American clubs to play rhythm and blues and jazz with passing musicians. After graduating from high school he went to live with family members in Oakland (California), where he played rhythm and blues, bebop and free jazz in clubs, performing with saxophonists Sonny Simmons and Dewey Redman, pianist Ed Kelly and drummers Smiley Winter and Philly Joe Jones among others. In 1961 he moved to New York, but lived there as a beggar until Sun Ra included him in his band. In addition, he played with cornetist Don Cherry, one of the fathers of free jazz along with alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, and drummer Billy Higgins. In 1963 Sanders formed his first group with John Hicks on piano, Wilbur Ware on double bass and Higgins, performing at the Village Gate club, where John Coltrane discovered him.
In 1964 Coltrane began inviting him to play in his band when he started to integrate into free jazz, although he didn’t officially belonged to it. In this way he participated in the masterpiece Ascension (1965), as well as Live in Seattle (1965), Meditations (1965), Live at the Village Vanguard Again! (1966) and Om (1968), characterized by the total desertion of traditional jazz concepts, like swing and harmonic structure, in exchange of a chaotic mixture of abundant irregularly distributed sounds with long dissonant solos. In 1964, Sander made his first recording Pharoah’s First with the ESP-Disc label, but the musicians accompanying him played bebop and didn’t follow him in his free adventures, so he was disappointed. Therefore, in 1996 he changed to Impulse! Records and published Tauhid, and the works he made with this label until 1974 were praised by his fans, critics and John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman.
In the introduction you hear the sound of voices and drums in an African celebration. Soon the song begins with people singing without lyrics together with the instrumentalists. Next Sanders enters offering a carefree solo and later introducing jazz vocabulary with brief overblowing remarks. Then the voices come back full of contagious happiness followed again by Sanders. And in this manner they alternate in a friendly conversation. After that comes Pomar playing electric bass with an open and smiling melodic line supported by percussion. Next Sander returns and the singers finish the song.
© Theresa Records
