Pharoah Sanders "I Play for the Creator"

Pharoah Sanders declared his true spirituality in a 1971 interview with Jane Welch, and talked further on his devotion to Freedom in music creation.

Pharoah Sanders "I Play for the Creator"
ON AN EARLY SPRING afternoon in New
York City Pharoah Sanders sat under the
picture he had painted of his wife Thembi
and talked seriously about many things.

He had recently moved into the upper
West Side town house—a tastefully re-
converted brownstone. Surrounded by his
paintings, his records and his instruments
from all over the world, he brooded about
his temporary state of inactivity. He has
one of the hottest new combos around
but happened to have had this particular
week off. He said that he felt better when
he worked more—he gets inspiration from
the changing audiences.

“Eyen when I was working with John
(Coltrane) I had to keep doing some-
thing when he wasn’t working, so I had
my combo even then. Sonny Sharrock,
Dave Burrell, Henry Grimes, Roger Blank
and I would get together and play some-
where to keep the music going,” he pointed
out. A totally musical person, Sanders is
just not happy unless he is active musical-
ly. The leader of the group many feel is
the most exciting avant-garde combo around
today seemed restless. As he spoke, he
unconsciously picked up his soprano sax
(an instrument he has been playing and
mastering more and more lately) and fin-
gered it abstractedly. He mused:

“There’s all kinds of music. . . In my
music I try to see nothing but colors...
Some people say strings are the most
spiritual of instruments, but I don’t say
that. Everything is music.”

The Pharoah Sanders combo has been
evolving for several years. The leader likes
changes—changes of mood, tempo, and
even players. Unlike most combo leaders
today, he invites sitting in on occasion.

“I don’t program the music,” he said.
“I sometimes can’t think of anything to
play, so I start anywhere and let the
energy take me where it wants to go. It’s
a feeling that you get. I like to give people
something fresh every time. I like a lot of
changes—I never know what’s going to
happen. I might start playing bells. And
the people enjoy being in the music too
—everything together while it’s happening.

If you have witnessed audiences sharing
Sanders’ musical experiences, you will have
seen the communion of spirit he can
achieve. Some people mistakenly say that
Sanders’ combo followers are a “cult”
who consider the music a religious experi-
ence—strange mystics into some super-
natural bag. I suppose some people said
this sort of thing about Charlie Parker’s
fans when he first started revolutionizing
the concepts of jazz improvisation. Sanders
has something new all right, but there is
nothing strange about a leader who, as he
says himself, “plays for everybody. I don’t
exclude anybody. If anybody wants to get
into it, the music is there for the reaching.
And many do reach.

Some lovers of the more traditional
forms of jazz say they cannot understand
the vigorous, often raw and dissonant free
music that is the trademark of the Phar-
oah Sanders group.

Sanders has a theory about the people
who say they don’t comprehend what he’s
doing. “Many people have a fear of my
music—they say they can’t understand it.

“I Play For The Creator”

My music has nothing that they can’t
understand if they can understand them-
selves. If they can’t understand them-
selves, then they can’t get to the music,”
he says.

Most evenings, Pharoah is playing freely
from what he calls “from high energy.”
He plays as the spirit moves him and de-
mands that same level of energy from his
sidemen plus the discipline of being able
to shift and move with him to take the
music wherever it wants to go.

Since 1969 Pharoah’s group has usually
included Lonnie Liston Smith on piano,
Cecil McBee on bass and Clifford Jarvis on
drums, along with one or two additional
percussionists, such as Lawrence Killian on
congas and Nat Bettis on congas and
bilophones. Percussionists Chief Bey and
Tony Wiley have also played with Sanders
recently. All these men add color and
strength to the group.

 Smith and Sanders are very compatible
and often work together on arrangements.
Percussively attacking the piano and often
plucking the strings and shouting into the
instruments, Smith brings a whole new
dimension to it. He is a highly intelligent
musician, always ready to experiment.

Of Jarvis, Sanders says he likes his dy-
namics. During his association with the
group, Jarvis has evolved with it and now
plays its music as a way of life. “He has
the balance and he has the other thing
too.” Sanders says.

McBee, Sanders feels, is an ideal bassist
who enjoys playing at the high level the
leader requires. At various times, bassists
Stafford James, Jimmy Garrison and Norris
Jones have also worked with the group,
and Pharoah pays them the highest compli-
ment: “They are all great leaders—it’s my
privilege to be working with them. When
I first started playing I never dreamed of
working with such great people.” From
those earlier days, he also fondly remem-
bers his musical association with Sun Ra
and, of course, Coltrane. In turn, he now
encourages new talent. Recently, the gifted
young trumpeter Marvin Patterson worked
with him on a club date. It wasn’t just that
Patterson played trumpet well (which he
did), it was the feeling he evoked. It re-
minded Sanders of the way he himself
plays tenor.

You can find Pharoah Sanders’ records
on the Impulse label. One of his long-time
fans has described the chronology of his
albums thusly: “Tauhid and Karma are the
beginning of the search. Jewels of Thought
is the spirit, and Summum Umyum Buk-
man (Deaf, Dumb & Blind) is really get-
ting inside it all.” He had also heard an
advance copy of Sanders’ new album,
Thembi (due for spring release) and
added: “Thembi is exploded truth!” After
hearing the track Red, Black and Green
from Thembi, I find that description very
apt.

Though Sanders is pleased enough with
making records and having people hear
them, he really prefers to play for live
audiences who listen. “I would like people
to hear me now, not just on records,” he
says. Unlike some modern jazzmen, he is
not adverse to traveling. “If business con-
ditions are right,” he says, “I’d take the
group to Europe, India, Africa—even as
far as Japan.” And, of course, like all the
new musicians, he likes playing college
concerts because “the conditions are better
and the audiences warmer and quieter.
There’s no bottles, no cash registers, no
loud talking. In a club, sometimes many
people don’t come to listen—so many other’
things are going on. You must listen to
the music.”

Thembi Sanders, a bright, until very re-
cently a student herself, explained: “Stu-
dents are eager to welcome you, not on
the basis of business but purely on the
basis of appreciation.” It was Thembi who
gave one of the best descriptions of her
husband’s art when she said: “Pharoah’s
music is a way of cutting across the field
of music as a whole—it is not compart-
mentalized. He plays for everybody. He’.
doesn’t separate the music.”

Sanders further explained his group’s
music: “We all try to play from high
energy. We look at music spiritually—
where it’s all coming from—not by theory
or styles, just the high energy. We can
feel church, rock, African—anything we
want to feel. I can feel anything I want
to feel while I’m playing. What comes to
me is truth. The music takes in everything,
so I cannot say we play to a small audi-
ence. I am very aware of what I’m doing
to get the effect. Some people don’t like to
have experiences like our music, but I
don’t like a one-sided approach to music.
It just is. I try to expand the territory of
music so that when it leaves the club or
concert hall it goes into the universal. I
play for the Creator. And my music talks
for me.”

Ref : DownBeat May 13 1971. Photo by Veryl Oakland