Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold

Infobox Album
Name = Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold
Type = live
Artist = Sun Ra


Released = 1976
Recorded = June 15, 1964
Genre = Jazz
Producer =
Length =
Label = Saturn
Reviews = *"Allmusic" Rating|3|5 [http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:0pfixqqsldte link]
Last album = "Live at Montreux "
(1976)
This album = "Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold"
(1976)
Next album = "Visions"
(1978)

Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold is a jazz album by Sun Ra, recorded live in 1964, but not released until 1976, on Ra and Alton Abraham's El Saturn label.

The record documents the earliest known recorded performance of "The Shadow World" (here reverse-named as "The World Shadow"), a complex structured piece which was to feature on several of Ra's better known records of subsequent years, notably "The Magic City".

It is an unusual item in the Ra discography, because tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders replaces John Gilmore, a mainstay of the Arkestra for most of its existence; at the time, he was working in other contexts, with the pianists Paul Bley and Andrew Hill, and drummer Art Blakey. [ [http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:0pfixqqsldte allmusic ((( Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold > Overview )))] ] Before releasing the recording, Sun Ra said "It should be very interesting to the world to show what the pre-Coltrane Pharoah Sanders was like" [Cited in cite book|last=Wilmer|first=Val|title=As serious as your life: The story of the new jazz|date=1977|publisher=Quartet books|isbn=0704331640|pages=89]

Also featured is the obscure flautist, Black Harold (Harold Murray) [cite book|last=Szwed|first=John F.|title=Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra|date=1998|publisher=Da Capo Press|isbn=978-0306808555|pages=205] , who takes a solo, vocalising through his flute, Rashaan Roland Kirk-style, on 'The Voice of Pan' (continuing into 'Dawn over Israel.')

Despite being Sanders' only recording with Sun Ra, he is not a major presence, taking only one solo on the first track. Ra himself plays several short piano solos and introductions. Alan Silva also has a brief bass solo, and alto saxophonist Marshall Allen provides his customary fireworks. The music is mostly in the experimental, free-jazz mould, and though not quite as radical and challenging as 'The Magic City', it is mostly dense and uncompromising (though that is not to say there is no variety - there are plenty of quiet interludes as well).

Critical views

Perhaps unfairly, the recording is criticised by Pierro Scaruffi, who writes: " [During the 60s, Ra's] albums became more irrational and experimental. Strange Strings (1966)...was still accessible compared with Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold (June 1964), released in 1976, whose The Voice of Pan and Dawn Over Israel were childish orgies of random sounds." [ [http://www.scaruffi.com/jazz/sunra.html The History of Jazz Music. Sun Ra: biography, discography, review, links ] ] Presumably he is referring to the vocalised sounds of Black Harold, as 'Dawn over Israel' is impressionistic, more akin to sophisticated avant-garde classical music than to the simplistic chaos Scaruffi describes, and with a surprisingly gentle flute solo in the second half (the composition 'Space Mates').

Sean Westergaard's review on allmusic.com similarly describes it as "more of a curio than a great listening experinece, and probably best left for the Ra and Pharoah Sanders completists." [ [http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:0pfixqqsldte allmusic ((( Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold > Overview ))) ] ]
Admittedly, it is an extremely rare album (although digitised versions have circulated on internet blogs and filesharing services), and also very short in length (no more than 25 minutes), but is intriguing nonetheless.

Track listing

#"Gods on a Safari" (Ra)
#"The World Shadow (incl. Rocket Number 9)" (Ra)
#"The Voice of Pan" (Ra)
#"Dawn over Israel (incl. Space Mates)" (Ra)

Personnel and Recording details

*Pharoah Sanders - Sax (Tenor);
*Black Harold - flute;
*Sun Ra - Piano, electric celeste;
*Al Evans - trumpet, flugelhorn;
*Chris Capers - trumpet;
*Teddy Nance - trombone;
*Bernard Pettaway - trombone
*Robert Northern - French horn;
*Marshall Allen - alto sax, flute;
*Danny Davis - alto sax, flute;
*Robert Cummings - bass clarinet;
*Pat Patrick - baritone sax;
*Alan Silva - bass, cello;
*Clifford Jarvis - drums;
*Art Jenkins- space voice

Catalogue Number: Saturn IHNY 165. Recorded live at the Cellar Cafe, New York 15/6/64, by Paul Haines (just before the 'October revolution in jazz', which took place at the Cellar Cafe in October of that year, and in which both Haines and Sun Ra were involved). Date and location details supplied by Ahmed Abdullah in an interview on WKCR (1965 and 1968 are often incorrectly mentioned in discographies).

References

External links

* [http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~moudry/disc_b.htm Sun Ra Discography]
* [http://www.angelfire.com/id2/laotan/1964.html Pharoah Sanders Discography]
* [http://www.scaruffi.com/jazz/sunra.html Piero Scaruffi on Sun Ra]