Pharoah Sanders Archives - JAZZ IMPRESSIONS

Routes: A Jazz Impressions Podcast – Episode 10

In our bumper anniversary 10th edition we pay tribute to two jazz giants: percussion legend James Mtume and vibes wizard Khan Jamal. But which route best connects them? Via the West Coast, or the astral plane? Dan travels through time and Ollie through space, on a cosmic journey that passes Philly, pharaohs and psychedelic beanies.

Thanks for indulging us for 10 episodes, and stay tuned for more astral traveling this year. Roads? Where we’re going, we only need Rhodes.

You can also find us on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts!

Tracklists below (SPOILERS!)

George Duke – Peace

Our last post looked at Billy Cobham’s fusion classic ‘Heather’ from his album Crosswinds (1974) which featured the mellow tones of keyboardist George Duke. Flashing back a couple of years earlier to January 1971, a young George Duke had just left Frank Zappa’s group The Mothers Of Invention and joined saxophonist Cannonball Adderley’s new quintet, replacing pianist Joe Zawinul. The months that followed would prove formative for this young pianist and in this year he recorded two albums: Solus and The Inner Source, originally intended to be two separate albums but were later merged, released on German jazz label MPS in 1973.

Idris Muhammad – Piece Of Mind

After a couple of months in hibernation, we’re back! In our last post, Dan chose Freddie Hubbard’s fusion classic ‘Red Clay’, released on CTI Records in 1970. A year after this album was released, CTI founded Kudu Records, a sub-label intended to showcase artists with a more commercial appeal to their CTI counterparts. Consisting of mainly black musicians, Kudu’s releases were often rooted in the soul jazz sound that was popular at the time. Drummer Idris Muhammad’s defining masterpiece Power Of Soul, released on the label in 1974 is one of the standout albums of the Kudu catalogue.

Alice Coltrane – Blue Nile

One of the artists mentioned in the previous post was multi-instrumentalist Alice Coltrane who plays both piano and harp on Joe Henderson’s elemental offering ‘Fire’. This wasn’t their first musical collaboration as they had already worked together on her own cosmic masterpiece, Ptah, The El Daoud, recorded at the Coltrane’s home studio in 1970 and released on Impulse! records.

Pharoah Sanders – Greeting To Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)

To mark the recent passing of pianist McCoy Tyner, the subject of our last post, the track for today is ‘Greeting To Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)’ from the live album Elevation by tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, released in 1974 on Impulse! records.