The playing time would be short even if this was a ten-inch record. Unfortunately it is also short in other areas. The spuriously frenetic Love Is Everywhere is just a bore and not enough is heard of Bonner and Sanders as soloists. Instead, most of the record is devoted to atmospheric ramblings with no real substance. This is particularly true of the title track, where an otherwise fine arco solo by McBee is over-powered by the cluttered surroundings.
More than anything else, it is the vocal incantations that are the record’s raison d’être, yet they are the very reason it fails. They may well have a message, but they lack conviction, and I cannot help wondering at whom they are aimed. Each time Bonner’s piano or Sanders’ tenor promises to burst out and say something, the voices return to kill it all. Sanders’ music has been moving in this direction for some time but it is all a long way from the superb Live In Seattle album with Coltrane in 1965. This must be rated as an advance backwards.
Discography
High Life; Love Is Everywhere; Wisdom Through Music (15½ min) – The Golden Lamp; Selflessness (15½ min)
Pharoah Sanders (ten/sop/flt): James Branch (flt); Joseph Banner (p); Cecil McPhee (b); Lawrence Killian, James Mtume, Babadal Roy (perc); Norman Connors (d).
(Impulse IMPL 8023 £2.99)
