Black Unity
Pharoah Sanders
Impulse through MCA/Universal
By Norm Dixon
The reissue of the Pharoah Sander's classic 1971 album Black Unity documents another step in this brilliant, underrated artist's evolution. It is also a jazz snapshot of the mood of Black America at the time.
Pharoah Sanders was John Coltrane's militant Afro-mystic fellow traveller. He is most celebrated for his 1965-67 collaborations with the Coltrane — documented on albums such as Meditations, Ascension and Live in Seattle. Following Coltrane's untimely death in 1967, Sanders continued to travel the road that he had set out on with 'Trane.
In the late '60s, the political optimism in the African-American community that had been kindled by gains of the civil rights movement began to falter. The promise of equality evaporated as the cities and ghettos became increasingly run-down, and the racism of the US capitalist system became increasingly brutal. The assassination of Martin Luther King in 1967 symbolised for many the futility of the hope that racism could be reformed out of existence.
The militant ideas of black nationalism, black power and socialism were embraced by larger numbers of African-Americans as they sought solutions outside the system. Black youth were fired up by the civil rights struggles in the southern states, the liberation movements in Africa and Asia and the struggle to end the Vietnam war. The ideas of Mao, Guevara, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Kwame Nkrumah, Franz Fanon, and especially Malcolm X were popular. Revolution was openly espoused.
A vigorous cultural radicalisation accompanied the political militancy. African-Americans explored art, music and religious and philosophical ideas from Africa and Asia. They set about rediscovering African history. It was a period of turbulence, impatience, excitement, frustration and determination to create a better society.
Sanders' post-Coltrane albums, Tauhid (1967) and Karma (1969), reflected this mood and his own search for an Africa-centred faith free of the hypocrisy of mainstream white Christianity and philosophy. His music advocated a creed that was inclusive, non-discriminatory and empowering. Sander's radical egalitarian mysticism was also in tune with radicalising young people's experiments in ideas, lifestyles and politics. It no coincidence that Sanders' saxophone has been described as jazz's answer to Jimi Hendrix's guitar: wild, uncontrolled, yet optimistic and inspirational.
With Black Unity, Sanders' Afrocentrism and spiritualism gained a harder political edge. The sentiment was a response to the times — the militant Black Panthers had just been all but destroyed by state repression and the US war against Vietnam was at its most barbaric. Liberation struggles were raging in southern Africa.
The call for unity — in culture and struggle — is represented by the bringing together of the instruments of the African and Asian diaspora: African drums, shakers, bells, gongs, flutes, cow horns, chains, thumb piano, balaphon and west African kora; Japanese koto; Indian harmonica and sitar; Cuban drums and shakers; Caribbean steel drums; and traditional jazz instruments — saxophone, trumpet, piano and bass.
The title track — and only track, spanning almost 38 minutes — weaves these instruments through bebop, r&b and New Orleans, punctuated with some fiery, turbulent and aggressive free stanzas, and some Coltrane-influenced "Love Supreme"-like passages.
The effect of this great music then, and now, was summed up in Thembi Sanders original album liner notes: "Black music is the lifestyle of black people as expressed in sound rather than words. This album gives you a cross-section of the ups and downs of our life. Listen well, enjoy the music and you will get some insight into your life and a feeling of belonging — Black Unity!".