Pharoah Sanders - Pharoah

This remastered, definitive version of PHAROAH was released with Pharoah Sanders’ blessing. Frequently bootlegged, this is the first official version since 1977.

The record’s origin story is as elusive as Pharoah was about everything Pharoah. It was born out of a misunderstanding between him and the India Navigation producer Bob Cummins and was recorded at a crossroads in his career with a group of musicians so unlikely that they were never all in the same room again. There was a guitarist who was also a spiritual guru, an organist who would go on to co-write and produce “The Message,” and a classically trained pianist—his wife at the time, Bedria Sanders—who played the harmonium despite never having seen one. At times ambient and serene, at others funky and modal, PHAROAH radically departed from his earlier work. It would become one of the artist’s most beloved records and one of the great works of the 20th century.

With Pharoah Sanders’ blessing, the limited edition embossed version of this 2 LP box set presents the definitive, remastered version of PHAROAH, his seminal record from 1977, along with two previously unreleased live performances of his masterpiece “Harvest Time.” This is the first official rerelease of PHAROAH, which has been bootlegged often since its original release in 1977. These exceptional live versions of “Harvest Time”—which Pharoah performed during an intense European tour in the summer of ’77 and which are included here for the first time—turn the original, beloved composition on its head.

This edition includes two previously unreleased live performances of the masterpiece “Harvest Time,” performed during a European tour in the summer of ’77. The box set includes never-before-shared photographs, rare ephemera, and features a 24-page booklet with rarely seen photos, interviews with many of the participants, and a conversation with Pharoah himself. Liner notes by Harmony Holiday, Pierre Crépon, and Marcus J. Moore.