The obvious next step after revisiting old favorites Abdullah Ibraham and Don Cherry, really the only logical thing to post after that, is to continue this Old School Friday remembrance of music past by listening to some Pharoah Sanders.
The only problem, what with Pharoah's prodigious body of work (and the man's still living and playing to this day), is where to start and what to play. I could easily go an entire month of posting nothing but favorite selections of Pharoah's and still have enough left over to burn an entire CD with, but after some due consideration and meditation, we'll go with Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah because, well, listen and you'll know why.
Beyond the Coltrane quotes and the incredible bliss interrupted by passages of intense chaos, the song functions as a spiritual journey deep into the soul of both the composer and his sidemen. It's incredible stuff and the sheer beauty of it all still brings tears to my eyes these 40 years later (it was recorded in 1969 but I didn't discover it until around 1976 or '77). The vocals are by the criminally underrecognized Leon Thomas.
If this music moves you as much as it still moves me, you'd be well advised to check out other Sanders compositions like The Creator Has A Master Plan or Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, or, really, just go and listen to anything by the man - you literally can't go wrong.
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