Pharoah Sanders: Spirit Force and Truly Iconic
Don Snowden, Rock's Backpages, 26 September 2022
OK, THIS is it, the first step... Pharoah has crossed over the rainbow bridge (and I bet his bridge was a real musical rainbow) and he was an absolutely essential figure in my musical life. Because Jewels of Thought was the first jazz album I ever bought... except I didn't know what jazz was. I didn't know about bebop, I didn't know Bird or Blue Note, I didn't know what pop standards were, I didn't know any conventions or rules that made music jazz and were meant to be followed. Maybe a little bit about big band and swing because of my mother's Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller records (not that they got played much), but certainly nothing near Ellington or Basie. That was old folks' music anyway, I didn't want to have anything to do with that. Cannonball and Ramsey Lewis I knew because they had hit singles and I heard 'em on the radio.
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