January AOTM #2: Promises

Album of the Month: Promises by Pharoah Sanders, Floating Points, and The London Symphony Orchestra

Plenty of albums released shortly before a beloved artist's death receive rapt acclaim: David Bowie's Black Star and Gil Scott-Heron's I'm New Here are prime examples. But I think Promises sits king amongst them all. Artists with 30, 40, 50+ year careers tend to reach a point of stagnation, deserved or not. Their past quality and innovation (for some people) excuses a lack of innovation many decades into their career. I generally am not one of those people. There are rare exceptions where "doing the same thing again" totally works (see the last two Judas Priest albums), but the majority of the time resting on laurels is a surefire way for your audience to lose any interest in your current output. So it is albums like Black Star, I'm New Here, even The Strokes' The New Abnormal, which shake the established convention of their music that present something fresh. Most of all, this is what Promises nails.

Pharoah Sanders was already going to be remembered as one of the all-time greats among spiritual and avant-garde saxophonists. His handle on the balance between visceral human emotion and complex jazz harmonies was second only to maybe Coltrane in my opinion. The softness of Sanders' breath sits at complete odds to the enormity of his sound.

What Promises does is recontextualize Sanders' signature to an entirely new tonal palette. Swirling synthesizers accompany a static motif made up of piano, harpsichord, and synths all performed by Sam Shepard of Floating Points. And a third voice, the strings of The London Symphony Orchestra stay subtle and textural for much of the record, only erupting in the latter half.

Across the 9 movements of Promises we are treated to a hugely varied set of timbres in a effortless, dreamlike fusion. The rhythmic motif provides a heartbeat wrought with tension in each composite instrument and release in the push-pull of anticipation. Floating Points' usually delicate sound creates a sterile, airy, and introspective atmosphere. And Sanders' saxophone is at once powerful and endlessly soft, where each breath can be felt, and the intentionality of his performance can be fully appreciated.

Improvisation is one of (if not the) key element to jazz music. The conversation between instrumentalists, the unchained dynamics and purposeful trade offs between soloists, it is what makes the best jazz so emotive. On Promises you can feel the effect that Sanders or Shepard have on not just you, the listener, but also on each other and consequently the form and function of the music itself. The early movements do the best job at demonstrating this, where Sanders and Shepard's dialogue feel most conversational. Before any major climaxes or shake-ups occur in the album, the saxophone and various synths bounce solos off of one another, staving any boredom from the static harmony by refreshing the palette repeatedly.

The midpoint of "Movement 3" is one of the most effective sections to me. With the warbling, round synth tone that runs through scales before screaming into the stratosphere, all underscored with sharp triangle-wave-esque chords. The opening to "Movement 1" is another highlight, introducing the album with the tone-painting motif that acts, for much of the album, as an unbreakable heartbeat, before a gradual accompaniment comes by way of Sanders' and Shepard's respective instrumentation. So when this motif fades and eventually disappears for much of "Movement 8" and all of "Movement 9" there's a sense of literal timeless-ness, like the music is experienced somewhere outside of the body, away from that beat.

"Movement 6" sees the gradual climax of the LSO on the album, a constantly building swell of violin overtaking the primary motif, allowing it to fade to the background. The strings in this movement primarily act in unison, a mass of vibrato swells dipping and diving like waves. And once the tension of "Movement 6" clears, the majority of "Movement 7" gains something of a 'light-headed' feeling, caried through large parts of "Movement 8".

Promises is more than an unbelievable collaboration between two seemingly disparate musicians. Promises was an opportunity for Sanders' generational talent to extend to worlds far beyond his own discography. It's an album which gives a priceless chance at rediscovering his genius in an entirely new context, to experience that awe for a second time.

-Paul Taylor

(Assistant News Director at WXOU)