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Pharoah Sanders Stays in a Stylistic Groove

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders’ annual stop at Catalina Bar & Grill Tuesday night was another potent reminder of the vagaries of fate in the jazz world.

Sanders has been an inventive, cutting-edge artist for more than three decades. Yet because his style is so similar to that of one of the great jazz innovators--John Coltrane--it can be extremely difficult to hear Sanders without feeling a constant, distant resonance with Coltrane. Like Sonny Stitt, who, for all his skills, spent most of his career in the shadow of Charlie Parker, Sanders will probably always be referenced to the explosive music triggered by Coltrane in the ‘60s.

His Tuesday performance, the opening set of a six-night run, was no exception. Working with long-time associate William Henderson on piano, bassist Alex Blake and the buoyant Billy Higgins on drums, he created a series of improvisations that managed, regardless of the selection, to maintain the stylistic groove he has been exploring for decades. Whether it was the old standard “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” or one of the tunes in 6/4 that follow in the pattern created by Coltrane’s memorable rendering of “My Favorite Things,” the results ere essentially the same.

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Sanders’ soloing--despite an unexpectedly abrasive sound from his tenor saxophone--generally started with some lyrical passages, then moved quickly into the fast note flurries, multi-phonic sounds and shamanistic moans and cries intrinsic to his (and Coltrane’s) style.

Often he left the stage to the other players, with Henderson shifting from thick-noted chord clusters to soloing based upon Middle Eastern-sounding scales. Blake, a high-energy performer, strummed his acoustic bass with the intensity of a flamenco guitarist, and the ever-smiling Higgins provided (as he always does) an irrepressible stream of hard-driving rhythm.

Was it all reminiscent of the avant-garde ‘60s? Yes, indeed. But the upside is that the past resonances did not diminish the present appeal. Sanders’ music may have been tinged with powerful traces of Coltrane, but it was never less than appealing, often startlingly original-sounding in a jazz decade that already has spent far too much energy reviving the bebop of the ‘40s and ‘50s.

* The Pharoah Sanders Quartet at Catalina Bar & Grill through Sunday. 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., (213) 466-2210. $20 cover tonight, Saturday and Sunday at 8:30 p.m.; $18 cover tonight, Saturday and Sunday at 10:30 p.m. With two-drink minimum.

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