Pharoah Sanders
Thembi

I immediately liked Sandra. I think I had chosen beforehand, before even talking to her. And I really did talk to her. Not like I usually talk, just for the sake of talking, to fill the voids that appear before me. I talked to her with the intent to communicate. It was something new for me.
I waited an entire week for my shift to coincide with hers, and it was a pleasure to talk for hours and hours. The customers were just an interval between our words. I have a very clear memory of those afternoons with the high sun, crashing over this calmest sea, and us talking as we passed Pianosa. How much I would have liked to quit everything, with the customers, enough with everything and go to Pianosa.

I talked to her about Dé, distant, at home, and how she smooths my edges, heals my mood, soothes my unhealthy part. Sandra, on the other hand, told me she wanted to get married, but first, she had to lose weight, that it's not right, for a woman of her age, to appear imperfect on such a day. And if I pointed out that she looked fine, in shape, for a woman of her age and just for being a woman, she replied: «Yeah, o' cazz', thanks, I like you too.»
«You're too rigorous, you!» she told me one day. I don't remember why. I didn't think about it. I usually have other things to do, but yesterday I thought about it. There is this saying from someone I know that certifies that in life you can either be ethical or happy, one excludes the other and I have given up on happiness from the start.

Pharoah Sanders I like because he is not like me and this clashes with my egocentrism. Pharoah Sanders is not one of those rigorous ones. No, he is one of those who has a smile for everyone, who doesn't need to take care of himself and therefore can dedicate himself to taking care of others.Pharoah Sanders I like because from his saxophone blows emerge many rainbows, that awaken me, uplift me and take me away from my grays. I especially like Pharoah Sanders because he is a friend. He is not Coltrane, he is not serious, not someone with doubts, someone who needs to rationalize, understand, manage, control, rule. Pharoah brings heaven to earth, he doesn't give a damn about anything. He overlooks and heals at the same time. A friend, indeed.

What I morbidly like about his music is this tension towards the pleasant note. It's free, mind you, as free as possible, but it doesn't lose sight of the only thing that matters in music, as in life: melody. This chaining of one major note to another seems to me a formula to save the world starting from the individual. I help you, you, you, you, and then you, I help everyone, the world little by little. Pharoah Sanders is better than Malcolm X.

Forget about everything, the world will recommend "Karma", "Jewels of Thought", but the world is populated by boring idiots who can't say something intelligent not even with a lantern, not even by luck. Great records, for heaven’s sake, stuff to leave you astonished, but "Thembi" is his best album, his masterpiece among masterpieces, more accessible and this is music born to be accessible.

And not only is it free Jazz with a heart this big. No, that would be reductive. It’s kraut, it’slife, the melody to save you from the free, the free like the anxieties that disturb you and the melody that comes to get you. Sometimes, a smile is enough. I never smile. That's why I like Pharoah.