Pharoah Sanders, legendary jazz musician, dies at 81

Pharaoh Sanders in 1990 at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands. Always and forever the most beautiful human being, may he rest in peace.” Born in Little Rock, Ark., into a musical family, Sanders came up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he played alongside many of the area’s best musicians, including fellow saxophonists Dewey Redman and Sonny Simmons, pianist Ed Kelly and drummer Smiley Winters. In 1965, Sanders joined Coltrane’s band as a tenor saxophonist and together they broke the traditional molds of jazz in albums like “Ascension” and “Meditations.” “Coltrane’s ensembles with Sanders were some of the most controversial in the history of jazz,” Sanders’ website said. In 1969, Sanders released his most famous work, “Karma,” which featured “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” a recording that became one of the most influential tracks of its time. Thank you Pharoah.” Sanders’ complex and structurally fluid instrumental ideas would come to influence subsequent generations of musicians, including the L.A. scene that produced Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington, Madlib, Carlos Niño and Terrace Martin.