Consisting of just two numbers, “Love In Us All” Pharoah Sanders’ final studio album for Impulse! from 1974 can be heard as a consolidation of the spiritual and free jazz he had recorded during his long tenure for the legendary label. 

Eight years earlier, Pharoah had entered Van Gelder Studio for “Tauhid”, the first of nine monumental studio albums for Impulse!. With each album he expanded the language of jazz saxophone with his circular breathing, multiphonic overblowing, upper register howls and guttural cries. At the same time his quest to in his own words “make something that might sound bad sound beautiful” found him in a constant shift between free form abstraction and spiritual elevation.

And that is where we find Pharoah on his final outing for Impulse!, recorded with producers Ed Michel and Lee Young [younger brother of Lester Young] at Van Gelder Studio on September 13th and 14th, 1973, and released a year later. 

The album featured one of Sanders’ great Impulse! line ups that he’d brought together for his 1973 recording “Wisdom Through Music”.  On bass was Cecil McBee who’d been on all Pharoah’s albums since 1970’s “Jewels of Thought”, drummer Norman Connors and pianist Joe Bonner, sidemen from 1972’s “Black Unity” onwards, and flautist James ‘Plunky’ Branch of Oneness of Juju fame. Also on the sessions were three of Pharoah’s regular percussionists, tabla player Badal Roy, Lawrence Killian of Roy Haynes’ Hip Ensemble, and James Mtume, fresh from his Strata East album with Mtume Umoja Ensemble “Alkebu-Lan – Land Of The Blacks”. 

Radiating transcendent beauty, the 19 minute opening track “Love Is Everywhere” (released in a five minute version on “Wisdom Through Music”) begins with one of the greatest bass vamps Cecil McBee ever recorded with Pharoah. Cascading percussion and Bonner’s piano elevate the mood for Pharoah to enter with the soaring vocal mantra “Love is Everywhere”, sung in call and response with band members.

Then where the version on “Wisdom Through Music” ended, the music fades and builds again. The transcendent piano of Bonner is wrapped with shakers, bells and tabla before Pharoah unfurls some of his most beautifully melodic soprano saxophone passages, while trading the song’s glorious motif with Bonner. It’s a message that has echoed through time inspiring a new generation – from Nat Birchall and Shabaka Hutchings to Isaiah Collier whose “Perspective (Peace And Love)” from the album “The Almighty” brings Pharoah’s mantra into the modern day. 

On Side 2, Pharoah’s dedication “To John” (Coltrane) draws from the deep source of free jazz recorded for Impulse! to date. Pushing the limits of the tenor saxophone with raw eruptions of sound while McBee, Connors and Bonner battle for space, it’s one of Pharoah’s heaviest improvised free jazz pieces. After 18 abrasive and chaotic minutes, the music settles into a calm meditative space as Pharoah takes a bow from the label where he found his spiritual calling in jazz. 

On leaving Impulse! Sanders continued to explore new sonic avenues through the 1970s – crossing from the ambient jazz masterpiece “Harvest Time” to the Quiet Storm leaning “Love Will Find a Way”. So the last of his albums for Impulse! holds a special place in the history of jazz with a message of love and togetherness that resonates just as loudly today. 

Pressed on 180g vinyl at Third Man, Detroit, in the original gatefold sleeve that opens to reveal the wonderfully evocative black and white photography of the session, “Love In Us All” is an essential addition to any jazz collection. 

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Andy Thomas is a London based writer who has contributed regularly to Straight No Chaser, Wax Poetics, We Jazz, Red Bull Music Academy, and Bandcamp Daily. He has also written liner notes for Strut, Soul Jazz and Brownswood Recordings.

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_{Header image: Pharoah Sanders, New York, November 13, 1976. Photo: Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images.}