Floating Points

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra – Promises (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:37 minutes | 404 MB | Genre: Modern Classical, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Luaka Bop

As many classically-inspired composers have moved from acoustic instruments into electronics, the possibilities of collaboration with jazz players has increased. Despite instrumental firepower and the best intentions, the history of jazz-classical blendings—specifically with tenor players like Wayne Shorter, Anthony Braxton and Ornette Coleman—has been mixed, finding the most success when the reeds are an integral part of the composition. Here the wise, eminently accomplished 80-year-old Pharoah Sanders—whose career has lived for the edges—has teamed with young UK composer Floating Points (aka Sam Shepherd) and the strings of the London Symphony Orchestra for a realization of Shepherd’s “Promises.” A collaboration of nine unnamed movements that run as one long (46:37) intricately constructed piece, Shepherd’s plethora of keyboards (many of them vintage synthesizers) effectively mesh with Sanders’ gift for breathy, urgent skronking. Recorded at Los Angeles’ Sargent Studio and London’s Air Studios, and mixed by Shepherd at EMS4 in London, Promises is dreamy, mysterious and close-miked to the point where you can hear Shepherd’s fingers on the keys.

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