Pharoah Sanders, one of the most wildly inventive figures in jazz who wrestled his saxophone to its limits and felt equally at home in Indian and African music, died on Saturday. He was 81.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His record label, Luaka Bop, said he died peacefully around friends and family in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAlways and forever the most beautiful human being, may he rest in peace,\u201d a label statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taking the open-mindedness of the free jazz movement to new heights, Sanders would virtually attack his saxophone by heavily overblowing on the mouthpiece \u2014 of which he collected hundreds \u2014 as well as biting the reed and even shouting into the bell of the instrument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sanders, a disciple of John Coltrane, who played aggressive solos on the jazz master\u2019s classic late-career \u201cLive in Japan\u201d album, was often seen as a sort of successor to the global-minded legend after Coltrane\u2019s sudden death in 1967.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ornette Coleman \u2014 arguably the most important pioneer of free jazz \u2014 called Sanders \u201cprobably the best tenor player in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Sanders, who to a lesser extent played soprano and alto sax as well, also divided audiences and never reached quite the same commercial success as Coltrane, Coleman or other historic jazz innovators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With solos that built from screeching and squawking to silky and melodic, Sanders was described as a godfather of spiritual or even cosmic jazz, although the reticent musician brushed aside labels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His best-known works included \u201cThe Creator Has a Master Plan,\u201d a nearly 33-minute track off his \u201cKarma\u201d album on which Sanders sounds as if he is exorcising demons, before reaching back to a heavenly state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leon Thomas sings on the track, released in 1969 at the apex of counterculture, with the lines, \u201cThe creator has a master plan \/ Peace and happiness for every man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUpper Egypt and Lower Egypt,\u201d off Sanders\u2019 influential 1967 \u201cTauhid\u201d album, builds off guitar twangs and a gentle xylophone paying tribute to African tradition as Sanders storms in with a saxophone that sounds like tortured howls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 Seeing saxophone as self \u2013
\u201cI don\u2019t really see the horn anymore. I\u2019m trying to see myself,\u201d he said in the liner notes to \u201cTauhid,\u201d his first album on the Impulse! label that put out Coltrane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd similarly, as to the sounds I get, it\u2019s not that I\u2019m trying to scream on my horn, I\u2019m just trying to put all my feelings into the horn,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Farrell Sanders \u2014 he changed his first name\u2019s spelling at the encouragement of futuristic jazz composer Sun Ra \u2014 was born and raised in segregated Little Rock, Arkansas, where he played clarinet in a school band and explored jazz from touring artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He moved after high school to Oakland, California, where for the first time he enjoyed the freedom to attend racially mixed clubs and had a fateful first meeting with Coltrane as they shopped for mouthpieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He later headed to New York where he at times fell into homelessness, working as a cook and even selling his blood to survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He met Sun Ra while cooking at a Greenwich Village club. Discovering his musical talent, Sun Ra and Coltrane enlisted Sanders as a band member, with Sanders coming into his own as a band leader after Coltrane\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Describing his style in a 1996 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Sanders said: \u201cI have a dark sound; a lot of the younger guys have a bright sound, but I like a dark sound with more roundness, more depth and feeling in it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want my sound to be like a fragrance that people will like \u2014 something fresh, like the smell of your grandmother\u2019s cake cooking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 Spiritual explorations \u2013
Sanders \u2014 distinctive in his later years for his long white beard and fez cap \u2014 dabbled in pop music, starting with 1971\u2019s \u201cThembi,\u201d named after his wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But his mainstream direction was brief and he often found more musical kinship outside the United States. On 1969\u2019s \u201cJewels of Thought,\u201d Sanders explored mysticism from across Africa, opening with a Sufi meditation for peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Decades later on \u201cThe Trance of Seven Colors,\u201d Sanders collaborated with Mahmoud Guinia, the Moroccan master of the spiritual gnawa music and of the guembri lute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sanders\u2019 1996 album \u201cMessage from Home\u201d delved into the influences of sub-Saharan Africa including highlife, the pop mix of Western and traditional music that originated in Ghana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also explored Indian form with his collaborations with Alice Coltrane, the jazz master\u2019s second wife, who became a yogi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sanders voiced the most admiration for Indian musicians, including Bismillah Khan, who brought a wider audience to the shehnai, a type of oboe played frequently at processions on the subcontinent, and Ravi Shankar, who made the sitar international.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sanders, accustomed to the sharing of energy within jazz bands, described Indian musicians as achieving \u201cpure music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNobody is trying to cut each other\u2019s throat. There\u2019s no ego,\u201d he told the San Francisco Chronicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Describing his own music, he said: \u201cI want to take the audience on a spiritual journey; I want to stir them up, excite them. Then I bring them back with a calming feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AFP<\/p>\n\n\n\n