Photo: Peter Van Breukelen/Redferns
Pharoah Sanders has died. He was 81.
Sanders' record label, Luaka Bop, shared the news in atweetSaturday morning.
The cause of death was not shared.
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, the legendary saxophonist grew up collaborating with some of San Francisco’s greatest saxophone players, including Dewey Redman and Sonny Simmons.
Gilles Petard/Redferns
In the 1960s, Sanders spent time with jazz legendJohn Coltraneand his band in New York City, and the group’s music was groundbreaking.
“Coltrane’s ensembles with Sanders were some of the most controversial in the history of jazz,” reads Sanders’website. “Their music represents a near total desertion of traditional jazz concepts, like swing and functional harmony, in favor of a teeming, irregularly structured, organic mixture of sound for sound’s sake.”
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Sanders continued releasing music throughout the 1970s and 80s, earning a Grammy Award in 1989 for best jazz instrumental performance for the collaborative album “Blues for Coltrane: A Tribute to John Coltrane.”
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In 2021, the saxophonist returned to the studio to record his final album, “Promises,” a collaboration with electronic music producer Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra.
source: people.com
