Pharoah Sanders, American jazz saxophonist and composer, whose record company Luaka Bop announced that he died peacefully Saturday with his family and friends at the age of 81 in Los Angeles, has died. The cause of death was not disclosed. Sanders was born on October 13, 1940 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA, and began his career in Oakland, California.
He became famous in the 1960s when he played with John Coltrane in New York, among others. After his death, he continued to work with widow Alice Coltrane and then performed as a soloist as well. Sanders released dozens of albums over the next several decades, the most recent of him being titled Promises – a collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra and DJ Floating Points – last year.
His passion was free jazz, a highlight is his work “Karma”, released in 1969, with his perhaps best known “The creator has a master plan”. His spiritual music often referred to African and Indian musical traditions. In 2016 he was named Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States, the highest U.S. honor for a jazz musician. “I always try to make sure that something that sounds bad somehow sounds good,” he told the New Yorker in 2020.
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