Lessons From Pharoah

I feel Pharoah Sanders’s presence all around me at Montreal Jazz Festival. It’s more than just his photo lacquered in retrospectives around the 46-year-old festival’s grounds paying homage to its other universally revered veterans—Getz, Miles, Jobim, Ella, Peterson. Sanders played the festival numerous times over the years, including in 1998, when the live album Spirits was recorded, an example of how more than just about any musician, Sanders played his saxophone like he was furiously channeling a higher being.