Starting songs right in the zone (jazz alert)

Anon La Ply

Diamond Member
I'm catching up with music I've not heard before and came across Pharoah Sanders' The Creator Has a Master Plan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah3XiTIDHds.

I've always been a slow starter (no matter how often I've convinced myself that I was starting with a bang) so the intensity of Pharoah's intro of this tune amazes me. Wondering about the mental and emotional state Pharoah would get into to play like that from the get go, and how he does it.

To pour out your heart and soul so fearlessly right from the first note ... transcendent indeed, even to a old sceptic like me.
 
Well on one hand I think it's just what professional musicians train themselves to be able to do.
On the other hand: This is a studio recording, right? So we don't know what they've been
playing just before taping that tune! A better example would be right the start of a live
concert, and even then usually musicians try to warm up and get in the zone beforehand.
 
I guess that start sounds so special it's hard for me to imagine someone in a normal state of mind playing like that. Thought he might have been meditating beforehand or something a bit special rather than just pumping out his lines like a well oiled pro.

Never mind. Probably just dumb romantic notion #10,609 from yours truly ...
 
I still owe you some tracks, Grea! I will get to them this week for sure.

Anyway, I know exactly what you mean. To start out at peak intensity from the first note is not so easy. It's not uncommon for the really great free jazz players to be able to do this. I've attended live shows where they accomplished the same thing, and it's really a band effort because this is collective improvisation, after all.

I caught the David S. Ware quartet back in the mid-90s at Alvin's in Detroit, with Matthew Shipp, William Parker and Susie Ibarra. They hit the stage blowing the roof off and I was stunned. That zone that I needed to work up to, they were able to get to immediately.
 
Well Larry, I found one on my own :)

Glad the notion resonated with you. I was wondering if I'd lost another plot. It's as though Pharoah started with a climax ad - no double entendres intended but if that sounds ambiguous, the analogy ... er, stands up pretty well.
 
I caught the David S. Ware quartet back in the mid-90s at Alvin's in Detroit, with Matthew Shipp, William Parker and Susie Ibarra. They hit the stage blowing the roof off and I was stunned. That zone that I needed to work up to, they were able to get to immediately.

Wow... That sounds like an awesome show.
 
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