Pharoah Sanders: Tauhid (Impulse)
Sanders' second, his first for a major label, and one of the key links
between free jazz & the emergent blare of the Velvets/MC5/Stooges et.
al… The year was 1966, the place was New York, and the milieu was that
of the jazz avant-garde looking towards the rest of the world for
inspiration.
Cited by the great Ron Ashton (RIP) of the Stooges as one of his
favorite pieces of music, the opener "Upper & Lower Egypt" is in many
ways the blueprint for the kind of structures that Sanders was to
explore over the next five years. Opening w/a churning & yet delicate
modal ensemble dominated by piano, guitar & percussion, it then drifts
into a sparse & broken section only to reconfigure - presumably in
Lower Egypt - w/a latin feel, over which Pharoah proceeds to finally
erupt in ecstatic saxophone-speak before winding down. And, whilst the
whole piece is still marvelously fresh, it's Sonny Sharrock's guitar
on the first section that I want to talk about here… Because, for
those of you who think of jazz guitar as slick, linear & polite, this
one'll come as a revelation. Sounding for all the world like Lou
Reed's radical "ostrich guitar" on the early Velvet Underground stuff
(must be something in the water) Sharrock quite simply erases the
previous tradition & starts anew. Guitarists please take note….
"Japan" is a lovely fragment, cod-orientalism at it's finest, w/a
beautifully wayward vocal from Pharoah to top it off. Dunno if you can
call it "jazz", though - not that that should worry anyone at this
late date. And "Aum/Venus/Capricorn Rising" - dominated as it is by
the sax/bass/drums - offers ample lyrical flow & full-blown free
action (including several amazing left-field outbursts from Sharrock)
to satisfy any purists that might be lurking in the woodpile.
However you wanna read it, this was one great group, w/the interplay
between guitar/bass/drums & percussion particularly uncanny. And,
unlike some of Sanders' later & larger ensembles, there is no sense
here that his sax is uncomfortably isolated in its role as the sole
horn. For those who are tempted to stray away from the guitar zone, by
the praise of their heroes for the free jazz of old, there is, quite
literally, no better place to start…
John Henry Calvinist
