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Pharoah Sanders's tenor saxophone solo on this 1966 live version of "Naima" is the second of two solos, following John Coltrane's single-chorus statement. Sanders takes four choruses of the 20-bar AABA form, his playing marked by extreme extended techniques including multiphonics, screams, and sustained high-register wailing that characterized his approach during this period with Coltrane's group. At 25 to 26 years old, Sanders was pushing the saxophone into previously unexplored timbral territory, and his extended solo transforms Coltrane's tender ballad into a vehicle for ecstatic, almost cathartic expression. The performance documents the radical evolution of Coltrane's music in its final period, with Rashied Ali's drumming and Alice Coltrane's piano reflecting the group's freer collective approach.
Pharoah Sanders was 25 to 26 years old at the time.
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