“The session was just me and Carlos Niño. That day was when we did the take of ‘Surya Meditation,’ that 28-minute take. It was this whole thing. Carlos said he knew in the moment that this was the place that the record was going to center around. I was super-happy, I feel like I really got to just be in the moment, in existence, and really take in everything I was experiencing in life at that time and put it into intention. With the intention of not only tending to my own mental health, but the intention of having it be something that could serve. Whether it served myself in that moment, or something that could serve my children in their moments, other individuals’ in their moments, it felt like this was a time that was very clear that it could be offered. I’ve been a part of different records where that was not the feeling. So to have that feeling, I was really moved by it.”
There’s a Pharoah Sanders feature forthcoming in Maggot Brain, but in the wake of his passing, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the great saxophonist’s sound world, tracing through lines, shared sensibilities, similar resonances, following the trajectories and interconnectedness with the man’s many legendary bandmates. I presented a mix for The Lot Radio last weekend, using the man’s horn to spring into these other realms. Enjoy. Track listing below:
Maleem Mahmoud Ghania – Peace in Essaouria Pharoah Sanders – Wisdom Through Music Hannibal – The Voyage Idris Muhammad – Peace Lonnie Liston Smith – Meditations Woody Shaw – New World Pharoah Sanders – Japan Joe Bonner – Celebration Michael White – The Blessing Song Lonnie Liston Smith – Floating Through Space Norman Connors – Morning Change Larry Young – Sunshine Fly Away Gary Bartz – Etoiles Des Neiges Sonny Fortune – Long Before Our Mothers Cried Michael White – Fiesta Dominical Pharoah Sanders – The Golden Lamp
“Gwoka was born out of necessity to reflect the moods of a people—its joys, its fears—and that’s why there are so many different rhythms. In Guadeloupe, gwoka is considered to be much more than a music style. It’s how they assert their Guadeloupean cultural identity as distinct from French national identity. Transmitting gwoka music involves the transmission of a collective history.”
Three years ago, Séance Centre’s eye-opening Gwakasonné compilation opened my ears to the music of Guadeloupe. A sound that seemed to encompass Sun Ra and Pharoah Sanders’ seeking ’70s work, the tireless drums of Jamaican nyabinghi, the Afro-Caribbean fusion of Cedric Im Brooks, and the synth patches of private issued new age music, gwoka nevertheless defied easy categorization. As I learned more about the form, I realize that the themes underpinning this form of expression tie into so much of our current narrative. It’s music with roots embedded in 17th century colonization, slavery, and creolization. It’s a music of defiance, of protest, of ritual, a music that has strong spiritual ties, acknowledging ancestors and fearlessly moving forward.
The incredible new compilation Lèspri Ka: New Directions in Gwoka Music from Guadeloupe 1981-2010 shines a much-needed light on this music. And the past few years have seen a wondrous amount of this music available once more.
“Lots of artists embraced gurus and spiritual garments during the 1960s and 70s, but few actually embodied it completely like Alice Coltrane did. When I visited her ashram in 2014, it was disarming to see the portrait of a woman I knew from all of her albums, now presented in the beatific soft light of a religious leader and guru. There’s a sense of conflict inherent in her music, beauty and chaos entwined, jazz tradition and the unknowable are all there at once. The original Turiya Sings tapped into that liminal space. These are ancient Indian hymns swaddled in the new-fangled synthesizer technology of the time. It’s a speedball of sound, both mystical and dinky.”
I’ve written a fewtimes about Alice Coltrane and was honored to write about how perception of her has shifted since the 1970s to where she is now as revered as her husband, John Coltrane. When a reissue of Turiya Sings was announced earlier this year, it had many fans excited at finally owning this grail of an album. But what ultimately came out though is far different, so the story became a questioning as to who gets to decide on the artist’s vision. It’s something Alice herself grappled with in releasing her late husband’s albums with additional strings and whatnot. And now, her own musical choices are brought into question with this release.
The Coltrane Legacy is heavy indeed and with two spiritual masters and negotiating their earthly messages is a heavy task indeed. There are many debates to be had about why a more “pure” version was selected for release, but the excuses as to why the original wasn’t part of it is odd. I do know that it’s misleading to say that the master tapes for Turiya Sings don’t exist (they do and they have been remastered), but that’s beside the point. Suffice to say, it’s a real missed opportunity to properly present some of her finest work to the world. And here’s hoping that we won’t have to wait decades for a proper reissue of Turiya Sings.
In 2017, I was invited to Robert Northern’s home in Takoma Park to chat about the music collected in Divine Music. With news of his passing today, I’m posting the full interview from this box set. I think often about his story about playing music for the wild animals in the Ngorongoro crater:
“Communicating with people was found to be like suffering judgment. In fact, it was almost impossible for me to dwell upon earthly matters, and equally impossible for me to bring the mind down to mundane thoughts and general conversations.”
andy beta 