Tenor sax giant, Pharoah Saunders came to Manchester on the first of May channelling the spirit and legacy of his great mentor, John Coltrane. The first half of the concert was all Coltrane favourites: Giant Steps, Naima and then, My Favourite Things. Sanders is obviously not as agile on his pins as he once was, and a quick blast of the theme of Giant Steps and he was off to the Green Room. This left his good, but not great, band of Jonathan Gee, piano, Marc Hodgson bass and the truly magisterial Gene Caderazzo on drums to introduce themselves. Fortunately, Sanders came back in to prove that if his legs aren’t so steady then his chops obviously are. Giant Steps provided the jumping off point for a torrent of notes in the Coltrane style. And if all this sounds too anchored in Trane’s shadow, the thing about Sanders’ playing is its fundamental elegance and warmth. This was shown to very great effect in Sanders’ lovely, poignant rendering of the ballad, Naima. And, if My Favourite Things seems to much of a Trane thing, then Sanders proved that even within the Coltrane style, he offers something brilliantly his own. The first half finished off with a too, too brief rendering of Sanders’ own, and very funky, ‘The Creator has a Master Plan’; showing that not only can he still get round the notes on the horn, his beefy, soulful voice is in very good order too.
Jonathan Gee’s evening was not helped by the Band on the Wall Steinway, which needs the top octave looking at. But the second half began with Gee’s lovely light tenor voice, out-Kurt-Elling-Kurt Elling, in a fine version of ‘When Nightingales Sang in Berkeley Square’. And Gee’s piano playing was more than a match for the song, too. Then Sanders launched into a terrific version of Trane’s Cousin Mary. The set finished with a fuller version of ‘The Creator has a Master Plan’, which showed the band at its very best: driving, funky, whole-hearted.
Ian Pople