Pharoah Sanders passed away on Saturday. He was one of jazz’s most wildly inventive figures, pushing the boundaries of the saxophone and at home in both Indian and African music. He was 81.....KINDLY READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶

His record company, Luaka Bop, reported that he passed away peacefully in Los Angeles, surrounded by loved ones.

The label’s statement read, “Always and forever the most beautiful human being, may he rest in peace.”

Sanders would virtually attack his saxophone by heavily overblowing on the mouthpiece, which he collected hundreds of, as well as biting the reed and even shouting into the bell of the instrument, taking the free jazz movement’s tolerance to new heights.

After John Coltrane’s untimely passing in 1967, Sanders, a student of the jazz legend who contributed brash solos to his classic late-career album “Live in Japan,” was frequently regarded as a sort of successor to the worldly legend.

Sanders was referred to as “probably the best tenor player in the world” by Ornette Coleman, arguably the most significant free jazz pioneer.

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However, Sanders, who to a lesser extent also played soprano and alto sax, alienated audiences and didn’t enjoy the same level of commercial success as Coltrane, Coleman, or other notable jazz innovators of the past.

Sanders was referred to as the father of spiritual or even cosmic jazz because of his solos, which developed from screeching and squawking to silky and melodic. Despite this, the reclusive musician rejected labels.

most well-known compositions include “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” a nearly 33-minute track from his “Karma” album in which Sanders seems to be casting out demons before returning to a divine state.

Leon Thomas sings the lyrics, “The Creator has a master plan / Peace and happiness for every man,” on the song, which was released in 1969 at the height of the counterculture.

Off of Sanders’ influential 1967 “Tauhid” album, “Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt” begins with guitar twangs and a soft xylophone paying homage to African tradition before Sanders bursts in with a saxophone that sounds like tortured howls.

– Seeing saxophone as self –

I hardly notice the horn any longer. In the liner notes of “Tauhid,” his debut album on the Impulse! label that released Coltrane, he stated, “I’m trying to see myself.

In a similar vein, he said, “As for the sounds I get, I’m just trying to put all my feelings into the horn; I’m not trying to scream on my horn.”

Sun Ra, a futuristic jazz composer, encouraged Farrell Sanders to change the spelling of his first name. Farrell Sanders was born and raised in segregated Little Rock, Arkansas, where he played clarinet in a school band and learned about jazz from touring musicians.

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.

He later headed to New York where he at times fell into homelessness, working as a cook and even selling his blood to survive.

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’s death.

Describing his style in a 1996 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Sanders said: “I 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,” he said.

“I want my sound to be like a fragrance that people will like — something fresh, like the smell of your grandmother’s cake cooking,” he said.

– Spiritual explorations –

Sanders — distinctive in his later years for his long white beard and fez cap — dabbled in pop music, starting with 1971’s “Thembi,” named after his wife.

But his mainstream direction was brief and he often found more musical kinship outside the United States. On 1969’s “Jewels of Thought,” Sanders explored mysticism from across Africa, opening with a Sufi meditation for peace.

Decades later on “The Trance of Seven Colors,” Sanders collaborated with Mahmoud Guinia, the Moroccan master of the spiritual gnawa music and of the guembri lute.

Sanders’ 1996 album “Message from Home” delved into the influences of sub-Saharan Africa including highlife, the pop mix of Western and traditional music that originated in Ghana.

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He also explored Indian form with his collaborations with Alice Coltrane, the jazz master’s second wife, who became a yogi.

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.

Sanders, accustomed to the sharing of energy within jazz bands, described Indian musicians as achieving “pure music.”

“Nobody is trying to cut each other’s throat. There’s no ego,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Describing his own music, he said: “I 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.”

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