Pharoah Sanders has a reputation as one of the founding forces of the free-jazz movement, but speaks modesty about his role.

"I never felt I was doing anything to change things around," he says from his home in California.

He will offer evidence of that -- one way or another -- Saturday when he appears at the August Wilson Center, Downtown, with a long-time collaborator, pianist William Henderson, and two jazz stalwarts of this area, drummer Roger Humphries and bassist Dwayne Dolphin.

"I've just been out there playing my music," he says. He started playing in the '60s in the Sun Ra Arkestra and then with John Coltrane. "I am just expressing myself."

He says that's also what Henderson does and probably why they have been a team so long.

Asked about their number of years together, Sanders chuckles and says: "I don't even want to count 'em."

Born Ferrell Sanders in Arkansas, Sanders, who recently turned 70, got his Egyptian-sounding first name from Sun Ra, where he started to develop his fame. He joined Coltrane in 1965, at the time 'Trane was experimenting with the sounds his saxophone could produce. They were able to fly those musical forays together on memorable, long and sometime-confusing trips.

"My Favorite Things," for instance, the "Sound of Music" mainstay that became a Coltrane classic, turned into 30 minutes of shrieking and blowing from the two of them.

In later works, he became an early spokesman of world music, adding sounds of Africa to his jazz. He also created songs such as "You've Got to Have Freedom," which begins in a rhythm-and-blues framework before moving into the sound that made him famous.

Besides an individual approach to melody, harmonics and form, Sanders also has a tone that has carved its own niche.

"I'm still working on it every day," he says, adding there is little direction or planning. "Somedays, when the weather gets funny, I'll have to change reeds and work on that."

In some ways, he adds, that loose attitude expresses what he always has been doing in with his saxophone and his music.

"I just came to the conclusion I wanted to just go where the spirit moves me," he says.

Additional Information:

Pharoah Sanders

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Admission: $30, $20; August Wilson Center members $24.35, $16.35

Where: August Wilson Center, Downtown

Details: 412-456-6666

---

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---