With his spiritual music, with African and Indian influences, US saxophonist Pharoah Sanders created a unique selling point. His passion was free jazz. In 2016 he was finally appointed Jazz Master. He died in Los Angeles at the age of 81.
The US jazz saxophonist and composer Pharoah Sanders is dead. His record company Luaka Bop announced that he died peacefully on Saturday with his family and friends at the age of 81 in Los Angeles. The cause of death was not disclosed. Sanders was born on October 13, 1940 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA, and started his career in Oakland, California.
He became known in the 1960s when he played with John Coltrane in New York, among others. After his death, he continued to work with his widow Alice Coltrane, and then appeared as a soloist. Sanders released dozens of albums in the decades that followed, his most recent being entitled ‘Promises’ – a collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra and DJ Floating Points – last year.
His passion was free jazz, a highlight is his work “Karma”, published in 1969, with his perhaps best-known work “The creator has a master plan”. His spiritual music often referred to African and Indian musical traditions. In 2016, he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in the US – the highest US honor for a jazz musician. “I always try to make something that might sound bad sound nice in some way,” he told the New Yorker in 2020.
In spring 2021, Sanders released another album together with electronic producer Sam Shepherd aka Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra. It’s his last work. On Instagram, many lament the musician’s death: “Another jazz giant has passed away, but your melody will remain in our thoughts forever”, “Thank you for the gift of your beautiful art”, or “The world is a better place because of it what you did,” read some of the comments.
