I am really really enjoying Promises a lot. Movement 7 leaves me in tears each time. But every time i hear the start of the first track I am waiting for a kick drum followed by the lyric; “A man conceived a moment’s answer to the dream’…but then Pharoah’s sax breaks the illusion. Is it just me?
It is still my best of the year so far, though.
I bought this earlier this week. Have listened to it twice so far.
First impressions: a beautiful album – superb.
It was a brilliant idea to have Pharaoh Sanders tootling gently over the ebb and swell of the London Symphony Orchestra. The whole thing is a highly original but still accessible work, which should appeal to a wide spectrum of music lovers – not just hardcore jazzheads who go for Sanders’s 70s albums on Impulse.
Promises is a brilliant, brilliant album. Easily the best of the year so far, IMV. I love everything about it from the Reichian repetition to the Symphony swell and Pharoah’s gentle noodling, each of which take their turn to unleash their power later on. It’s an album that rewards perserverance and patience. The final few movements need the ones before it to give them real meaning.
BigJim, I tear up as soon as Pharoah enters towards the end of Movement One. Here is a man who rubbed shoulders with Coltrane, even gave him inspiration. Saxophonists seem to be able to age really well, provided they get past the obligatory addiction, whereas trumpeters generally struggle. Is it all to do with embouchement I wonder?
Nevertheless, kudos to Mr Points. Promises is incredibly well thought-through and delivered to perfection. It’s going to take something really special to beat it to the top of my year-end poll!
It is an achievement TL isn’t it? Agree with your thoughts on Sanders. I am a fan of stuff like The Creator has a Master Plan and Black Unity. To hear him still making vital music is lovely. Apart from Reich I hear a lot of Debussy too. It certainly moves my heart and mind.
It’s a beautiful album and unfolds more and more treasures with every listen.
I had the great pleasure of seeing Pharoah Sanders at Birdland in 2016. I was in NY on tour and convinced a fairly large proportion of my company to go and see him. It was one of my greatest nights watching live music and I think a few who merely came along to humour me were converted too. A link to the past, though his music surges ever forwards.
That was good. The more of this type of thing – Ornette Coleman, Pharaoh Saunders, Alice Coltrane* – I hear, the more I like it.
But even better for me was the follow-on track on YouTube, by Floating Points. I’d never heard of him (but many of you have, going all the way back to 2015). I love intelligent trance**.
Apparently the musician has a PhD in neuroscience and epigenetics. That just makes me warm to him even more.
* They are completely different, you fool, sal.
** This isn’t intelligent trance, it’s something else. What do you know?
He was also a piano scholar at Chetham School of Music in Manchester. So a bit of an all-rounder. Intimidating!
Yeah, Sal, his earlier stuff is much closer to Four Tet or maybe a more syncopated BoC and that is why I picjked up on him as I like that kind of electronic glitchy stuff too. The previous albums are well worth a punt if you like that kinda stuff too, but the change in compositional style is partly why I think this present album is so astonishing.
I have listened to this three times, and it seems to be the same riff (vibes? glockenspiel?) repeated with tiny variations over the entire album, with a couple of sax breaks and a quiet organ on one track. I mean it’s nice enough but nothing remarkable. What am I missing?
After a gushing Guardian review a few weeks ago, I put on my six listens ear goggles and piled in, but they fell off after three. Short version: it didn’t grab me.
So, what you’re saying is that, to your ears this record is no more than “nice”.
Thing is, in the jazz world, “nice” is the ultimate accolade
I have no access to recreational cigarettes, unfortunately.
There is joy in repetition. The glacial pace of change represents the natural movement of tectonic plates which, later, leads to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, followed by a new dawn.
Joy of repetition? Tell that to a Spurs supporter.
It’s very well about talking about “glacial pace” on a jazz recording, what about the glacial space in their trophy cabinet.
Please, think before you post.
Pharoah Sanders is a Jazz musician but Promises isn’t a Jazz album. Sam Shepherd (Floating Points) is a classically trained electronic musician. The LSO are a full-on orchestra. I’d describe Promises as Contemporary Classical.
Some people just don’t think do they??
This thread has got me very keen to hear Promises and other stuff by the Points.
Stumbled across a few live odds and sods.
Glasto
KEXP
In my post higher up the thread, there is a link (2015) – guess who made the comment about Floating Points, the earliest reference on AW I could find?
I have to eat some humbe pie here. I listen to it and later when choosing some more music I think “I enjoyed that” and put it on again. After many listens I realise it’s complex and layered and possibly the best chillout record in existence, and that is not faint praise.
Still don’t get the lyric reference to (I assume “And You and I” by Yes?) though, @BigJimBob