ODE TO COLTRANE (Pt.2): Pharoah Sanders & Christian Vander

Pharoah Sanders
Greeting to Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)
Elevation
Impulse, 1973














Magma
Coltrane Sundia
Kohntarkosz
A&M, 1974

Well, last night's McCoy Tyner and Pharoah Sanders show was a disappointment. Perhaps it was inevitable, with all of the hopes I had placed in it. I had envisioned a My Favorite Things/Resolution/Creator Has A Master Plan medley. It didn't happen that way. Instead, we got a few trifles, a half-hearted "Afro Blue" and McCoy checking his watch every few bars. One hour set. Not a second more. And not a great hour, at that.

That being said, I wanted to give a closing (if oblique) ode to John Coltrane on what woulda have been his 80th birthday with two tracks. These two odes close the book with quiet waves into the sunset rather than with trumpet fanfare. But both go pretty deep. The first is a Pharoah Sanders track, off of his Elevation album, called "Greeting to Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)." Played on piano by Joe Bonner, it features the harmonically heavenly, harp-like chording that chracterized much of Tyner's sound (much more of which I would have loved to have heard last night), here augmented with all sorts of blissful chimes and shakers. Wordlessly beautiful.

The second track is deliberately similar. It was recorded by the man who may be my favorite musician, drummer/pianist/vocalist/composer Christian Vander and his band, Magma. I would be perfectly happy to highlight Magma pieces every day, but this track, "Coltrane Sundia," is an unusual one in the Magma canon. Placed at the end of one of their darker, more ominous albums, Kohntarkosz, it's a warm, spiritual beacon, an explicit expression of Vander's frequently mentioned, but usually only implied, passion for Coltrane's music. Check out the repeated motif of the high guitar note followed by the descending piano chords. It reflects a kind of glance to the infinite and a humble glance back to Earth. Sublime and effective.

Considering the piano-based nature of this piece and the acknowledged resemblance Vander's piano solo in hismagnificent "Eliphas Levi" has to Tyner's solo in "My Favorite Things," you have to wonder if his love for John Coltrane is as much a love for McCoy Tyner. Hmmm...And bringing it all around to complete the circle, Vander's jazz/soul/gospel band, Offering, would often play Pharoah Sanders' piece, "You've Got to Have Freedom." Perhaps it's truly all One.