The Secrets of the Pharoah : Music: The jazz saxophonist is thought by some to be carrying Coltrane’s torch, but he prefers to let his horn do the talking.

Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders is reluctant to comment on the spiritual aspects of his music, which has been emphasized in dozens of books and articles published since his association with the late John Coltrane during the early 1960s.

Sanders played with Coltrane from 1963 until Coltrane’s death in 1967. Coltrane was an intense, introspective artist who spoke more with his saxophone than with his words. Sanders is thought by some to carry Coltrane’s spiritual and musical torch. Although Sanders won’t expound upon the meditative qualities of his own music, he does seem to exist in a realm beyond the day-to-day concerns of most people.

“I just play the music, there’s nothing else I can say,” Sanders said by telephone from his home in Richmond, Calif. “Whatever experience you or anyone will get from it, that’s your own experience. I’m not saying I’m this or that.”

But Sanders’ message has left its mark. At 52, he has carved out a place among the most daring and inventive of jazz players to have emerged during the past 30 years.

Last November at the Jazz Note in Pacific Beach, Sanders electrified packed houses. He will return there Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

His recorded legacy is large and critically acclaimed, running to more than 30 albums. Those include “Welcome to Love,” released last year, a collection of ballads such as “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and “Polka Dots and Moonbeams.”

Sanders is well known for his aggressive work with Coltrane, but his playing on his own albums has always been warmer and melodic. Over the years, Sanders has composed several songs around the theme of love and has always included romantic ballads and standards on his recordings.

“Welcome to Love,” released in the United States on the Timeless label, came about because producers at the Japanese Alpha label, which sometimes collaborates with Timeless, requested a collection of ballads for the Japanese market, according to Russ Musto, the U.S. representative for Timeless, which is based in the Netherlands. From among 200 tunes suggested by the producers, Sanders selected 11.

According to Musto, “Welcome to Love” was Timeless’ top U.S. release last year, and was also extremely popular in Japan, where it was released on Alpha.

Sanders met Coltrane in New York, shortly after Sanders moved there from the San Francisco Bay Area in 1962 to be part of a vital New York jazz scene. Those were ripe times artistically, but also difficult.

“It was pretty cold,” Sanders recalled. “I slept in the subway; I slept all kinds of places.”

Legend has it that Sanders and Coltrane first made contact in New York when Coltrane asked for advice on saxophone mouthpieces. But Sanders isn’t so sure.

“I don’t remember anything like that,” he said.

He went on to build an identity as a bold innovator with the urgent, emotional tenor sax he played alongside Coltrane on such seminal Coltrane albums as “Ascension” and “Meditations.”

At the time, some critics and listeners didn’t know what to make of the music, which featured the two saxes shrieking, crying and moaning in a zone well outside the traditional melodic, harmonic and rhythmic boundaries of jazz.

But there was an underlying logic. Coltrane had listened to Indian music and had been captivated by its meditative qualities. He brought these to jazz by concentrating his melodies and solos on particular tonal centers, as some Indian music does, instead of moving through complex chord changes. This so-called “modal” approach gave Coltrane’s seemingly wild and random music a directed, hypnotic focus.

Although Sanders will not speculate on any relationship between his music and Coltrane’s, Dr. Art Davis, the bassist on “Ascension,” remembers the influence Coltrane had on a young, upcoming fellow tenor saxophonist some 14 years his junior.

“When Pharoah started out, he was a little green, but after working with John, he really honed his ability,” Davis said. “John sort of took him under his wing, especially after Eric Dolphy was no longer alive.” (Dolphy, a close friend, fellow saxophonist and onetime band mate of Coltrane’s, died in 1964.)

“Pharoah’s playing on ‘Ascension’ was good. I thought he was a force to be reckoned with,” Davis said.

After Coltrane’s death, Davis joined Sanders on his own recordings, including the 1982 “Rejoice,” reissued this year. Through these associations, Davis had a chance to witness the blossoming of an artist, hearing both traces of Coltrane and the emergence of Sanders’ own voice.

“It’s a little of both,” Davis said. “He’s branched into some of his own things. There’s still that Coltrane influence, but it’s not as marked as on some other players. (Saxophonist) Wayne Shorter shows more of a Coltrane influence. I think Pharoah has more of his own skills now.”

Sanders’ softer side, as exhibited on “Welcome to Love,” may be more accessible to some listeners, and seems to indicate a softening and mellowing. But Davis never agreed with early-1960s assessments of Coltrane and Sanders that found more anguish and pain in their music than joy and hope.

“I don’t think they were angry,” Davis said. “I thought they were just searching for different harmonic structures, just trying to explore, like a person going to another country that was unknown.”

Nearly 30 years after he dramatically launched his career with Coltrane, Sanders seems little interested in keeping tabs on the latest trends in jazz. He said he doesn’t listen to any of the younger sax players who might extend the Coltrane-Sanders continuum. He doesn’t buy their recordings, he said.

Despite his reticence during the phone interview, he comes off as peaceful, but he is unsure whether “happy” would be an appropriate word to describe his life at this point.

“Happy? I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t say that. What gives me pleasure? I don’t know, I don’t get into all that.”

Sanders may not be able to put his finger on his feelings, but his music is much more expressive, taking others on rich, uplifting emotional journeys.

* At the Jazz Note, Sanders will be backed by bassist Marshall Hawkins, pianist William Henderson and drummer Sherman Ferguson. Shows are at 8 and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 7 and 9 p.m. Sunday.