KARMA

CRESCENT WITH LOVE

On this live concert recording from 1998, tenor saxophonist Sanders & percussionists Rudolf & Drake paint a sonic canvas with vibrating, chanting lines, inflecting the sound with world music instruments, including traps, frames, tablas, djembe, udu, gong, bendir & many other strange & wonderful things. Reminiscent of Pharoah Sanders early 70s Impulse recordings. (Previously deleted:7/1/07. Original release date:6/13/00)

With Pharoah Sanders' blessing, this limited edition 2 LP box set presents the definitive, remastered version of PHAROAH, his seminal record from 1977, along with two previously unreleased live performances of his masterpiece "Harvest Time." PHAROAH will be released a year after the legendary tenor saxophonists' untimely death, and two years after the release of what was to become his final album, the widely acclaimed PROMISES, a collaboration between the composer Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra.

CREATOR HAS A MASTER PLAN

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. For 1971's Black Unity, Pharaoh Sanders added groove to the foundation of spiritual and free jazz he had explored on his previous Impulse! Albums. The result is a piercing and emotive 37-minute title track exploration of African, Latin, aborigine and Native American sounds, driven by rhythm. Verve By Request Series features transfers from the analog tapes remastered.

This release in a series of live recordings of concerts from the Fabrik in Hamburg-Altona, one of those hidden treasures from the archive of the NDR, was intended to bring back the memory of changes and revolutions in the world of jazz of more than four decades ago. It has now turned into an obituary - at the end of September 2022 the tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders passed away at the age of 81. This recording of the Sanders Quartet from 6 June 1980 is so far the oldest from the Fabrik, predating the great jazz-epoch of the venue. An era, which even today Thomas Engel, the first program planner of the Fabrik, describes as a very special period for popular and not-so-popular culture in Hamburg and far beyond. Furthermore, this concert formed part of the then fifth edition of what was still called the New Jazz Festival, a summit of German, European and US-American musicians. Only thanks to the NDR Bigband, top-class jazz was performed at the old industrial site on Barnerstrasse in Altona at all. In the mid-1970s, the band was brave enough to leave it's familiar recording studio and perform rousing concerts at the Fabrik. Since 1976, the New Jazz Festival organised by Wolfgang Kunert, the program planner of the big band, institutionalised jazz music at this exceptional location.

Sanders is incredible on tenor and soprano saxophones as well as flutes, bells and vocals; this multi-instrumental approach has made him one of the most sampled musicians of today and he is currently very fashionable with acid jazz and hip hop fans as well as his loyal core audience. Produced by Bill Laswell, his latest offering fuses African rhythms with traditional jazz idioms and even more futuristic ambient styles, making it appealing to dance, street and underground clubs. [Note: This product is an authorized CD-R and is manufactured on demand].

Limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on blue coloured 180-gram audiophile vinyl. "Beyond a Dream" is a live jazz album by saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and drummer Norman Connors, recorded on July 22, 1978, at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and released in 1981 by Arista Novus. The album showcases a blend of spiritual and free jazz elements characteristic of Sanders' style, complemented by Connors' dynamic drumming. A reviewer from Dusty Groove described it as "a dream of a record from this legendary spiritual jazz duo."

Juan Les Pins Jazz Festival 1968 Pharoah Sanders Audio CD

Japanese pressing features the high-fidelity SHM-SACD format (single layer). Cardboard sleeve packaging. Universal. 2025.

Pharoah Sanders' COMPLETE 1975 RECORDINGS AT THE MAISON DE LA RADIO IN PARIS. Tranferred from the original STEREO tape reels at the French INA (Institut national de l'audiovisuel). Includes a 12-page booklet with rare photos from the actual performance by Christian Rose, and an exclusive essay by longtime Down Beat contributor Kevin Whitehead.

Japanese resissue, part of the Timeless 50th Anniversary (1975-2025) campaign. Ultra-Vybe. 2025.

180-gram black vinyl. Originally released in 1995, Message From Home is a transcendent journey through sound, blending Pharoah Sanders' spiritual jazz legacy with hypnotic hip-hop grooves and rich African rhythms. Produced by the visionary Bill Laswell, this album is a testament to Sanders' boundary-pushing artistry in the later stages of his career. The lineup is as impressive as the music itself: Foday Musa Suso brings the shimmering textures of the kora, Bernie Worrell infuses funk and soul through his unmistakable keys and vocals, while Charnett Moffett, William Henderson, Dominic Kanza, and Jeff Bova round out a dynamic ensemble that moves effortlessly between tradition and innovation. Highlights include the mesmerizing Our Roots (Began in Africa) - a hypnotic, groove-laden meditation on cultural origin - and five other deeply immersive tracks that explore themes of ancestry, unity, and transcendence.

Pharoah Sanders' COMPLETE 1975 RECORDINGS AT THE MAISON DE LA RADIO IN PARIS. Tranferred from the original STEREO tape reels at the French INA (Institut national de l'audiovisuel). LP mastering by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab. Includes an extensive booklet with rare photos from the actual performance by Christian Rose, and an exclusive essay by longtime jazz critic/historian and Down Beat contributor Kevin Whitehead.

Pharoah Sanders / Elevation (Verve Vault Series) The album is a spiritually resonant final Impulse! Studio statement that bridges the raw fire of earlier albums with a deeper, more spacious sound. Format: Vinyl Genre: JAZZ Release Date: March 2026

Principal cast: Ernestine Jackson (Ruth Younger); Ralph Carter (Travis Younger); Helen Martin (Mrs. Johnson); Joe Morton (Walter Lee Younger); Debbie Allen (Beneatha Younger); Virgina Capers (Mama Lena Younger); Robert Jackson (Joseph Asagai).
Recorded at Columbia Records 30th Street Studio, New York on October 27, 29 and November 2, 1973. Includes liner notes by Robert Brittan and Judd Woldin.
All songs written by Judd Woldin and Robert Brittan.
RAISIN opened at the 46th Street Theatre in New York on October 18, 1973 and ran for 847 performances, closing on December 8, 1975.

The most internationally acclaimed opera composer of Brazil, hailed by Verdi as a “real musical genius”, Antonio Gomes is today all but forgotten outside his native country (where the brilliant overture to Il Guarany is regarded as a national artistic treasure). The opera itself is known largely from books and from a recording by Caruso and Destinn of the love duet at the end of Act 1. After the enthusiastic reception in Rio of a couple of his operas, Gomes, who came from a family of modest musicians, was awarded a grant enabling him to study in Milan. There he wrote Il Guarany, which was produced at La Scala in 1870 with huge success.

The story is set in sixteenth-century Brazil and deals with the love of Cecilia, daughter of the Portuguese nobleman Don Antonio, and the ‘noble savage’ Pery, chieftain of the Indian tribe of Guarany (who eventually accepts baptism). They are threatened both by the hostility of the cannibal Aimore tribe and by Spanish adventurers led by Gonzales, who has designs on the silver mine owned by Antonio and on Cecilia. The opera ends spectacularly a la Meyerbeer when Antonio, to save his daughter, blows up his castle with himself and his enemies in it. The work is categorized as an ‘opera-ballet’, but, at least in this performance, there is no music for dancing.

So Italianized was Gomes that except for a very few bars there is no real local colour: indeed Cecilia’s first aria, rich in coloratura, is a polacca! Overall the music, for Indians and whites alike, is purely Italian, similar to middle-period Verdi, but the atmospheric orchestration is far more adventurous and inventive – one example being the sinister opening to Act 2. Highlights other than the duet mentioned are Pery’s aria at the start of Act 2, a jaunty adventurer’s song by Gonzales, Cecilia’s Act 2 soliloquy (which however leads to a rather conventional ballad with quasi-guitar accompaniment), and the duet scene for the lovers in the savages’ camp. The stars of this performance, given before an excited but discriminating audience, are Domingo himself in the title-role – ardent and committed (though, as elsewhere, he will not alter the intensity of his projection for asides), Villarroel on the most brilliantly stunning form I have heard her, and the capable and intelligent Alvarez; too many of the others are afflicted with tiresome wobbles. Both chorus and orchestra are excellent, and John Neschling (who I think has not come our way before) invests the whole with a real dramatic sense. Those who like full-blooded romantic opera should not miss this.

-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone [5/1996]

BRAHMS: SYMPHONY NO 1, ETC MU

Classical Music

When I reviewed Robert White's Angel collection of Beethoven and Weber folk-song arrangements {The Gallant Troubadour, Fanfare 9:4), I mentioned this RCA collection as another possible source of pleasure to those who enjoyed the Angel set. Here it is on compact disc sounding at least as good as ever with the tenor in his element supported by virtuoso playing (Beethoven's settings were supposed to be playable by amateurs but they'd better be good amateurs). Full texts are provided, but so clear is White's enunciation that you'll have little need for them; one of the songs, “The Soldier,“ is probably better known nowadays as “The Minstrel Boy.“ Unfortunately, RCA could think of nothing appropriate that would serve to fill the CD out, so it contains only 44:25 of music, including pauses between songs, but what's here is certainly choice.

-- James Miller, FANFARE [9/1987]

PIATIGORSKY / MENOTTI / BEGLARIAN: Remembering Piatigorsky

A Tribute To Jascha Heifetz (2015) Itzhak Perlman, Samuel Sanders "The first person in my evolution is Jascha Heifetz," Itzhak Perlman told The Strad magazine, "... Heifetz created a tradition for himself." In this tribute Perlman - who has also now created his own tradition - performs pieces arranged by the legendary Lithuanian-born violinist.

Tom Saunders keeps Wild Bill Davison's flame burning with this stirring tribute album featuring Chuck Hedges, Bill Allred, Johnny Varro, Paul Keller, and Rick Fay.

Criss Cross is proud to present the leader debut of bassist Joe Sanders, who is most widely known on the international scene for his long association with pianist Gerald Clayton's Trio, and is often heard with the best and brightest of his New York City peer group, of whom he convenes three - pianist Luis Perdomo, alto saxophonist Wil Vinson, and drummer Rodney Green (rising star vocalist Gretchen Parlato joins the mix on Sanders' Journey and Sorrow) for a diverse recital comprising 7 strikingly melodic, harmonically sophisticated originals that cover a range of stylistic food groups, as well as 2 jazz standards (Cedar Walton's Hindsight and Pat Metheny's Question and Answer) and a songbook chestnut (The Things We Did Last Summer).