Village of Pharoah

Today, I thought I would post something a little different than usual due to the exciting fact that I will be seeing spiritual jazz legend Pharoah Sanders perform for the first time tonight at Yoshi's in Oakland. This will be Pharoah's first of three consecutive night's in which he will grace the stage at Yoshi's.

Over the past two years, my love for jazz music has sky-rocketed as I've continued to dig deep into the music's culture, artists, and releases. The unfortunate thing that I have come to realize, which is somewhat similar to disco, is that many of the artists that I have been drawn to like John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, and Max Roach are no longer with us, therefore I will never get the opportunity to experience what it must of been like to see them perform live. With that being said, I try to make it an absolute priority now to see "the far too few" surviving legends of jazz that have made an impression on me like Pharoah Sanders, Randy Weston, Yusef Lateef, and Hugh Masekela, whenever I get a chance.

As I've already mentioned, this will be the first time that I will be seeing Pharoah perform, which feels like an early Christmas gift. I first became interested in the saxophonist when I heard him playing with Coltrane on records like Cosmic Music, Expression, and Live At The Village Vanguard Again!, with then later enjoying Pharoah's own releases like Tauhid, Summun Bukmun Umyun - Deaf Dumb Blind, Thembi, and Black Unity. What I enjoy the most about Pharoah's music is the many sophisticated layers that his compositions are made up of and the overall spiritual trance those layers tend to put a person in as they listen to them. Pharoah's musical achievements and milestones are far too great to be listed here in one blog entry, therefore I won't go into a long biographical rant. I find the best way to capture the essence that is Pharoah's music is go out and purchase one of his many extraordinary brilliant albums and listen to it over a bottle of wine. I think from there you'll be able to start to understand the sophisticated beauty of Pharoah's music. As the late great saxophonist Albert Ayler once said about Pharoah's music, "Trane was the Father, Pharoah was the Son, I am the Holy Ghost."

So as I get my chance to finally hear Pharoah Sanders and all those spiritual layers that his music always tends to express, I plan to take it all in and appreciate the moment of being able to hear a jazz legend like Pharoah Sanders

Pharoah Sanders - Village of the Pharoahs, Pts. 1-3