Monday 16 June 2014

Album of the Day: "Ask The Ages" Sonny Sharrock (1991)

I've been terribly remiss in updating this blog, for various reasons, mostly related to the fact that I've been busy enjoying living my life rather than reflecting on it in print. However, I realise that I still have much to say, and I will redouble my efforts to update more frequently. For now, here is an album which I was alerted to at its release in 1991 by my old friend Jim Duckworth, who was a huge Sonny Sharrock fan.

I listened to it obsessively for a long time, and it still sounds incredibly fresh to my ears 23 years later. With the inimitable Elvin Jones on drums, Charnett Moffett on bass, and Pharoah Sanders on tenor and soprano, it is, to my mind, the closest anyone has ever come to the spiritual intensity and fire of the John Coltrane Quartet. Track 2, "Who Does She Hope to Be?" is a beautiful moment of tranquility and understatement, without which, the entire album would simply launch itself into orbit.



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