Pharoah Sanders - Crescent with Love (Venus, 1992)

Pharoah Sanders, tenor sax
William Henderson, piano
Charles Fambrough, bass
Sherman Ferguson, drums

Recorded October 19 & 20, 1992
Sear Sound, NYC
Engineer: Fred Kevorkian

In 1964, John Coltrane hired Pharoah Sanders to play on the album Meditations. With the addition of Rashied Ali as a second drummer, the "classic quartet" became a sextet. Hearing Sanders for the first time was a shocking experience, but I played Meditations often and it became one of my favorites. 

I recall Nat Hentoff's liner notes inside Impulse's gatefold sleeve. I'll paraphrase: "Sanders played minute after minute in a register I did not know the tenor had." As Hentoff also noted, the overblowing and screeching that had become common ways for energy players to express emotional climaxes were the fundamental mode of expression for Sanders.

Twenty years later, I was again shocked to find Crescent with Love, Sanders' 2-CD tribute to John Coltrane. I was surprised because Sanders plays tender ballads such as "After the Rain," "Lonnie's Lament," "Naima," "Wise One," among others. All are delivered with a sumptuous tone that bears no resemblance to the raw screeching on Meditations. My shock quickly turned to gratitude for Sanders' choice to celebrate Coltrane's more lyrical legacy.

I was able to see Sanders perform live at the Atlanta Jazz Festival in the late 1990s. The memory is foggy, as it is with festivals where the performance times are limited, the roster long, and the outdoor seating grassy. I remember mostly the power of Sanders' tenor.

Crescent with Love has been issued in at least 9 versions, all with the same program but with different cover art and formats. We can now revel in Japanese vinyl and SACD versions sporting the original impressionist artwork shown above. 

Crescent's predecessor, Welcome to Love: Pharoah Sanders Plays Beautiful Ballads (Timeless, 1991), has received comparable treatment. It is also warmly recommended.

Sanders' remarkable career lasted 55 years, beginning with a dozen or so Impulse albums in the 60s and 70s, and continuing past his 80th birthday. My last citing was the minimalist collaboration of Sanders, Floating Points, and the London Symphony Orchestra (Promises, Luaka Bop, 2020). Sanders died in 2022 at age 81.

Joe Henderson - So Near, So Far (Musings for Miles) (Verve, 1992)

Joe Henderson, tenor sax
John Scofield, guitar
Al Foster, drums
Dave Holland, bass

Recorded October 12-14, 1992

Power Station, NYC

Engineer: Jim Anderson

Miles Davis's death on September 28, 1991, triggered numerous tributes and memorials, proving once again that in the music industry death is a good career move. I normally avoid tribute albums, preferring to play deceased artists' original albums. But Joe Henderson's So Near, So Far (Musings for Miles) has become one of my favorites over the past 35 years, and it grows in esteem each time I hear it. It is vastly more engaging than Henderson's more celebrated Lush Life (Verve, 1991), a tribute to Billy Strayhorn.

Davis composed or co-composed all of the tunes except for "So Near So Far," which was written by British jazz artists Benny Green and Tony Crombie. The nine Davis compositions covered on Musing for Miles are not the most obvious choices. Some of the classics are here ("Miles Ahead," "Flamenco Sketches," "Milestones"), but some are cuts from Davis's earliest 10" albums.

Pairing Henderson's tenor with John Scofield's electric guitar was a stroke of genius. Although Davis relied heavily on strong pianists (e.g., Wynton Kelly, Herbie Hancock), he generally avoided guitars until his electric funk stage (Bitches Brew and beyond). On So Near, So Far, Scofield supplants the piano's chording and soloist roles while the dream rhythm team of Al Foster and Dave Holland handle the rest. 

Scofield and Henderson complement each other superbly. The unison and harmony sections sound fresh, and Scofield's comping is funky but respectful of Miles' legacy and stature. 

The extensive booklet notes include tributes from members of the quartet, all of whom had played in Davis's bands of the 1970s and 1980s, long after the tunes on the CD were originally composed. I'm touched by the closeness of Davis's relationship with Al Foster, as told by Miles in an excerpt from his autobiography, included in the booklet. Foster died in 2025 at age 82.

Henderson died in 2001 at age 64. His music was also memorialized by tribute albums such as Jim Snidero's The Music of Joe Henderson (Double-Time, 1998), which is the subject of a future post in this blog.

So Near, So Far was recorded digitally, so it is unlikely to be reissued on vinyl. Used CDs are abundant and preferred over downloads or streaming because of the booklet.

If you don't know this music, get it. You won't be disappointed. 

For my reviews of two other Joe Henderson albums, go to:

Post: Edit An Evening with Joe Henderson

Post: Edit The State of the Tenor: Live at the Village Vanguard, Vols. 1 and 2