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Mark de Clive-Lowe & Friends: Freedom: Celebrating The Music Of Pharoah Sanders

By Chris May
July 7, 2022
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Mark de Clive-Lowe & Friends: Freedom: Celebrating The Music Of Pharoah Sanders

Albums by artists who are best known for their work outside jazz are best approached with caution. Keyboard player Mark de Clive-Lowe's Freedom: Celebrating The Music Of Pharoah Sanders is one such. Before moving to Los Angeles, Clive-Lowe lived in London, where he was prominent in the late 1990s/early 2000s broken beat movement, which, without getting too complicated about it, fused electronic dance music with a little jazz and funk.

Clive-Lowe, however, is no wannabe jazz musician. He has chops, as he demonstrated on Live At The Blue Whale (Ropeadope, 2017), a tribute to

Yusef Lateef

woodwinds
1920 - 2013

" data-original-title="" title="">Yusef Lateef,

Sun Ra

piano
1914 - 1993

" data-original-title="" title="">Sun Ra and

Ahmad Jamal

piano
1930 - 2023

" data-original-title="" title="">Ahmad Jamal. Freedom was also recorded live at the Los Angeles club, which, sadly, closed in late 2020, a casualty of the pandemic.

A 2 x CD/2 x LP set, Freedom was recorded in January 2018, and why it took so long to get released is unclear. But no matter. It is here now—and it is a cracker. Clive-Lowe assembled a strong lineup for the event: consummate spiritual-jazz vocalist,

Dwight Trible

vocals

" data-original-title="" title="">Dwight Trible, tenor and soprano saxophonist

Teodross Avery

saxophone
b.1973

" data-original-title="" title="">Teodross Avery, who already has a convincing

John Coltrane

saxophone
1926 - 1967

" data-original-title="" title="">John Coltrane tribute album in his c.v. (2019's After The Rain on Tompkins Square), bassist

Corbin Jones

bass, acoustic

" data-original-title="" title="">Corbin Jones, drummer

Tommaso Cappellato

drums
b.1976

" data-original-title="" title="">Tommaso Cappellato and percussionist

Carlos Niño

percussion

" data-original-title="" title="">Carlos Ni?o. The well recorded, ninety-minute package features a dozen tunes associated with Sanders, most of them originals and mostly from his late 1960s/early 1970s Impulse albums, but also including "You've Got To Have Freedom" from 1980's Journey To The One (Theresa).

What appeals about Freedom is not that Clive-Lowe and company set out to replicate Sanders' arrangements and performances but that they purposefully did not. The opening track, "Upper Egypt," sets the band's direction. It cuts almost immediately to the chase with stonking solos from Avery and drummer Cappellato, whereas Sanders' original was all about the lengthy, teasing intro.

Trible is heard on half the tracks, making his entrance on track two, "Elevation," on a reading which begs retitling as "Levitation," and which has Jones putting his acoustic bass down and picking up a sousaphone. Inevitably, the track is as reminiscent of British tenor saxophonist

Shabaka Hutchings

woodwinds

" data-original-title="" title="">Shabaka Hutchings'

Sons of Kemet

band / ensemble / orchestra

" data-original-title="" title="">Sons of Kemet and its tuba player,

Theon Cross

tuba

" data-original-title="" title="">Theon Cross as it is of Sanders. But there is an appropriate circularity to that. Trible also excels on "You've Got To Have Freedom" and a fifteen minute "The Creator Has A Master Plan."

And so the fun continues. The penultimate track, the West African-inspired "Ore-Se-Rere," is a fittingly joyous knees-up, preceding the encore "Memories Of Lee Morgan." But it makes one wish the gig had instead ended with Sanders' even more ebullient, yet neglected, nod to West Africa, "High Life." That, along with edits which end a couple of tracks rather too abruptly and the curious, under-three-minute fade-outs of "Greeting To Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)" and "Elevation," are the only gripes.

They are also minor gripes. Freedom is a great album.

Learn more about our star rating system

Track Listing

Disc One: Upper Egypt; Elevation; Colors; You��ve Got To Have Freedom; Thembi; Astral Travelling. Disc Two: The Creator Has A Master Plan; Greetings To Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner); Love Is Everywhere; Mansions World; Ore-Se-Rere; Memories Of Lee Morgan.

Personnel

Mark de Clive-Lowe

keyboards

Dwight Trible

vocals

Teodross Avery

saxophone

Corbin Jones

bass, acoustic

Tommaso Cappellato

drums

Carlos Ni?o

percussion

Additional Instrumentation

Mark de Clive-Lowe: piano, Rhodes, keyboards, live effects; Teodross Avery: tenor and soprano saxophones; Corbin Jones: acoustic bass, sousaphone (disc one 2); Dwight Trible: vocals (disc one 2-4, disc two 1, 3, 5).

Album information

Title: Freedom: Celebrating The Music Of Pharoah Sanders | Year Released: 2022 | Record Label: Soul Bank Music

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