Two jazz greats are coming back to vinyl. Pharoah Sanders’ 1974 album Love In Us All and Bennie Maupin’s 1977 release Slow Traffic To The Right are both getting new vinyl printings via the Verve By Request series. Both albums are available for pre-order now.
Love In Us All is often considered one of Sanders’ most essential recordings, capturing his frenetic energy and ear for harmony. The saxophonist’s album features just two tracks, both of which take listeners on a journey. “A lot of time I don’t know what I want to play,” the John Coltrane collaborator later told The New Yorker of his improvisational spirit. “So I just start playing, and try to make it right, and make it join to some other kind of feeling in the music. Like, I play one note, maybe that one note might mean love. And then another note might mean something else. Keep on going like that until it develops into—maybe something beautiful.”
Order Pharoah Sanders’ album Love In Us All now.
Though Maupin has similar roots, his sound on Slow Traffic To The Right is quite different: slower, dreamier, and more chilled-out. That saxophonist was a contemporary of Miles Davis, and described years later never knowing what his music would end up sounding like. “What I was hearing going on around me was so strange and so beautiful,” he recalled to The Last Miles. “Once the music started I felt like I wasn’t even standing on the floor.” Maupin then went on to create Headhunters with Herbie Hancock, and that influence is very present on Slow Traffic To The Right. “We knew it was going to be something that was funky – we didn’t know how funky!” Maupin said later. “Herbie and I talked a lot together, wrote some tunes and the next thing I know it was done.” Featuring beloved musician and fellow Hancock collaborator Patrice Rushen on the keys, Slow Traffic To The Right blends jazz, funk, and even a bit of rock to create a body of work that sounds both very 1970s and still quite fresh today.
Order Bennie Maupin’s Slow Traffic To The Right now.
