Pharoah at Jazz Festival Willisau, August 26, 1977

Pharoah performing at Jazz Festival Willisau on this day in 1977, with Hayes Burnett on the bass.

For one of his last stops of this brief but exemplary European tour that Pharoah took in the summer of 1977—with Hayes, Clifford Jarvis, and Khalid Moss—they stopped at the renowned Jazz Festival Willisau in Switzerland, on August 26, 1977. 

The festival was only in its third year of operating that summer, but it had already developed a glowing reputation. The program had an overarching theme: It was billed as a celebration for John Coltrane on the 10th anniversary of his death, and the schedule was packed with people who had played in his band—Mal Waldron, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and of course, Pharoah.

Besides“My Favorite Things,” Pharoah mostly played his own music, including from his seminal record Pharoah, which had only been released a few months earlier. During this particular set, they played his masterpiece from that album “Harvest Time.”

Niklaus Troxler, the creator of the festival, remembers that afternoon in vivid detail: “I remember being impressed by all the instruments and bells Pharoah and his group brought on stage. Everybody in the band was playing percussion.

“The atmosphere was truly amazing. The sun was shining through the concert room windows. His music went from kind of explosions of sound, to more melodic and peaceful sounds. At the end of their performance there was a standing ovation. The public was so touched by their music. Afterwards, Pharoah was very pleased, and spoke about the audience reaction. The concert had sold out with 1500 people in attendance. It was amazing for that time. 

“His performance was in the afternoon and he wanted to hear other concerts that evening, and was very touched by Carla Bley’s performance later that night.”

The grounds of the Jazz Festival Willsau 1977, to take you back to the afternoon that Pharoah played. Photo by Hans Eggerman.

In a review from the Swedish monthly magazine Orkester Journalen, Jonas Gruvaeus mirrored Nikolaus’s sentiments: “Sanders carries on a low-key conversation with some divine being in his music, to sometimes flash ecstatically and, as it were, preach this praise of divinity,” he wrote.

“The concert opened with hand organ and small, tiny chimes of bells before Sanders sat behind the grand piano and in a wide, soft and slightly weary circle set the contemplative tone of the music.

“Sanders is a complete saxophonist, he lets the tone come out of a deep silence, from which he sometimes quietly pulls, sometimes powerfully pulls it. The tone rises, hisses, bubbles, it smacks and he takes through the scissors. He lets the tone go out, around and richly split. Above and below notes are superbly mastered, as a technician Sanders is dazzling.”

Special thanks to Christian Tarabini and Thomas Gauffroy-Naudin for contributing to the research of this story, and to Roger Bergner of Musikarkivet in Sweden.