Sanders Back in East Bay
He'll wail, wed at Yoshi's club
Jeff Kaliss, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, March 9, 2001
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/03/09/EB191183.DTL

Legendary saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, whose roots are deep in the East Bay, says that now he prefers to consider himself "in transit" between Los Angeles and New York.

But while he acknowledges that he left the Bay Area some time ago, Sanders will be back this month for two important events at Yoshi's in Oakland : a benefit and his wedding.

The benefit will be March 20 for Ornette Coleman's ailing drummer Billy Higgins. Sanders, 60, has fond memories of Higgins. "He'd come by this (New York) club called The Playhouse, and we'd sit down and exchange communication, " Sanders recalls. "And he would be playing with the knives, forks, spoons and stuff. He was always beating on something."

As for the wedding, Sanders will marry Tina Richardson, whose Los Angeles- based Hub City Records will probably issue the saxophonist's next release. It will feature vocalist Dwight Tribble, who will also perform with Sanders at Yoshi's.

The high regard in which Sanders holds his new singer reflects his own persistent standards. "I like his texture," he says, "but first of all I like his quality as a man: he's a person striving to expand himself spiritually."

Sanders accompanied jazz giant John Coltrane in the sonic and spiritual music explorations, which preoccupied the latter end of his career. After Coltrane's death in 1967, Sanders continued as one of the best-loved jazz heralds of a new generation bent on expanding the space between their ears.

Some of Sanders' most popular compositions included chants, intoned in a mesmerizing baritone by singer Leon Thomas. "The Creator Has a Master Plan," in 1969, became something of a hit, likely to be heard in the homes of the free-thinking, alongside acid rock and Indian ragas.

But while many fans settled down to a more mundane existence in subsequent decades, Sanders pretty much stuck to his vision, and when he moved to the Bay Area in the late '80s, he looked the part of a shaman elder, grey-bearded and dressed in colorful garb.

The living reminder of soul-searching and visionary jazz, he would manifest himself and his horn, both on schedule and unexpectedly, at a variety of venues, including Yoshi's, to which he returns next week.

"Through the week, I'd be trying out my mouthpieces," recounts Sanders, who's very particular about that interchangeable part of his instrument. "So at Sunday jam sessions, I'd go around and try them out in public. But," he adds with a gentle chuckle, "I didn't tell anybody what I was doing."

His life journey actually began, as Farrell Sanders, in Little Rock, Ark., in 1940. As a shy, artistic high schooler, he studied tenor sax and sat in with Bobby "Blue" Bland, B.B. King and whoever else came through town in the '50s.

"That's what I am, I'm just a blues player," says Sanders, far more unassuming than many fans might expect. "Cats ask me about playing, and I tell 'em, go sit in with a blues band, 'cause they play blues in all the keys. It's about the inner feeling, how you really feel inside."

Sanders carried the blues west when he came to study art at Oakland Junior College in 1959. With a handful of other blues-spirited jazzmen, including perennial pianist Ed Kelly and the late drummer Smiley Winters, he founded a group called the Oakland Raiders, who played evenings for pizza and beer at places like Dean's in East Oakland and The Stewed Inn in Berkeley.

Weekend gigs at shows and dances helped fund Sanders' schooling, but he eventually abandoned painting and drawing for music.

Across the Bay, at the well-remembered Jazz Workshop in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, Sanders first heard his famous future employer live. John Coltrane was performing his trademark take -- "My Favorite Things" on soprano sax.

"I could visualize all these things happening, women dancing and all kinds of things," Sanders recalls.

He also got a glimpse of the blues coloring to Coltrane's improvisation.

"In the old days, you'd see a guy walking on the bar, getting all excited on this one note," Sanders said. "And John seemed to have that sound, wailing, like Illinois Jacquet, or Dexter (Gordon), or Pres (Lester Young). It was a certain ring they had on the sound, a very bright ring, and a sort of edge that kind of lifted the spirit up."

ALL IN THE MOUTHPIECE

Soon after they were introduced, Sanders invited Coltrane to roam the pawnshops of downtown Oakland, searching for old mouthpieces that could produce that sound, the kind that, decades before, had been made from quality brass.

Kelly and Winters then urged Sanders to spend time in New York.

"They said, 'You should go back there and play with a better rhythm section . . . and learn your standards, all the bebop tunes, all the ballads, learn how to sight-read, work with technique, and buy your black suit.' "

The saxophonist made the move, but found the center of the jazz world to be "very cold and very unconcerned. I went to Washington Square Park, and I used to sleep with my arms around my horn."

He made money selling his blood and later working in a cafe, hanging with the advance guard of the progressive jazz scene whenever he could. Sanders found himself at the door of the Half Note, where Coltrane was engaged, without the price of admission.

"So John just reached into his pocket and gave me a lot of bills and said, 'Come on in.' He kind of remembered me from San Francisco."

During this same period, Sanders also became an avid reader of things musical and spiritual.

The two saxophonists met again in the mid-'60s, at another Jazz Workshop gig by Coltrane, who was eager to explore beyond his classic quartet setting.

"He got my number," says Sanders, "and one day I got this call, he asked me was I doing anything, and I said no. So he said, 'Would you like to come and work with me?' and I told him, 'Yeah!', and then I was playing with him every night. I felt pretty nervous at first, because he's such a giant player."

SHARING RELIGIOUS VIEWS

While recording a searing series of albums on the Impulse label, which also showcased Sanders under his own name, the pair came to share many discoveries about Eastern religions.

But during the '70s, the record-buying public lost sight of Sanders.

"People thought I was going to continue on doing what John was doing, and I didn't," he explains. "I started thinking about what I wanted to do, 'cause I wanted to play some ballads and tunes, and not just extended improvisations."

When he returned to a longtime residence in the East Bay in 1986, he was warmly welcomed by the former musical Oakland Raiders. "They all said, 'I told you that you were gonna come back.' "

Aside from formal club engagements, spur-of-the-moment jam sessions, and recordings for the El Cerrito-based Theresa label, Sanders was commissioned to compose for Lines Ballet.

NEW YORK CALLS

But ultimately Sanders felt the need to seek once again, for at least part of the year, the excitement of The Big Apple. "In New York City, when it gets cold, the spirit is much greater," he says. "And I move faster."

He gets to explore world music there, especially Indian, which sometimes holds his interest more than jazz.

But he also rubs elbows with the most promising young jazz players, among them saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, whose father John named him in honor of the Indian sitar virtuoso.

"I say to myself that I can depend on him to keep the music happening," Sanders reports.

©2001 San Francisco Chronicle