Pharoah Sanders - blowin' up a storm.
Pharoah Sanders – blowin’ up a storm. (photo: Jan Persson)

. . . or click on the link here for Audio Player – Pharoah Sanders Quartet – Live at Les Pommiers, Coutances, May 15, 2015 – RFI-France Musique.

I play a lot of older material, particularly Jazz on this site, but I don’t spend a lot of time seeing what’s going on today, the legends who are still with us, still blowing up a storm – the new Jazz voices on the horizon. In short, what’s happening now.

In attempting to answer that question, I ran across this concert by the Legendary Pharoah Sanders and his Quartet, recorded live at Les Pommiers in Coutances, France earlier this month, via the venerable and wide-ranging France Musique.

Pharoah Sanders has been around for a while and has played with a host or Jazz luminaries, including the great John Coltrane and has also been considered one of the greatest tenor Sax players in the world. He’s joined on this date by William Henderson, piano, Oli Hayhurst, bass and Joe Farnsworth, drums.

So if you thought Jazz was a thing of the past and all but extinct, you’re wrong. It may be getting the cold shoulder in the U.S. but it’s doing phenomenally well in Europe.

Clearly, they know something we don’t.

Enjoy and support your local Jazz artists. They will save your life on occasion.