Pharoah Sanders – Pharoah

Wow, I hadn’t heard this before, scooped it up for $42. The set is great, lots of trinkets in the box. The albums are well pressed, the SQ is boarding great. “Harvest Time” is a simplistic masterpiece, you get 3 version of this, one on the main album and two different liver performances that are quite different so the bonus disc has real value. My bonus disc was a bit warped but I’ll live as both are centered and very quiet. This is really opening up new explorations for me.

Phone Louis Balfour: this is grrrrrrrreat, nice and wunderbar #jazzclub

A Fantastic deluxe reissue. For standard vinyl, the sound is top notch. The extras are of superior quality in and of themselves. For $40-$50 this release is a steal.

I like everything about this release. Great music, great box set and to my ears the pressing itself is very nice.

Hi all, I'm pretty sure you'll all be happy with your own opinions of this work but here's my take.. from the original project notes .. hope Yale doesn't mind :P
CY
Pharoah Sanders 'Pharoah' Notes

Observations:

A) 'Harvest Time'

The sleeve states side 1 is 20:50 but is actually 20:24. Change sleeve artwork?
The feature track obviously, and very intense music so I went in very deep to remove the slightest glitch from vinyl, whilst leaving in a great many that exist on the recording.
The vinyl noise is very low and was easily dealt with.
The same cannot be said for the recording which is noisy and flawed throughout - though hopefully not in a way that'll ruin anyone's enjoyment unless they're very picky.
There are several low clicks in the original mix (examples at 2:15.6, 18:57.3, etc) these could be removed but they are part of the canvas, a canvas covered in many little beautiful moments of imperfection.
Much of the tape hiss, the sax track especially, fades in/out along with the instrument, in the mix. The guitar does much the same, with its fluttering amplification and it's really all just fine when you get into it and realise it's what the musicians were doing, not flaws in the record. For example the intro guitar mix is mono but starts shifting to the right channel when Pharoah's sax starts at 0:45
In a nutshell: Don't worry about the noise and tape hiss, it's what they made.
Anecdote:
I love laughing and crying at the same time.. and music is one of the only things that can make me do this.
The deep snagging session (looking for very tiny glitches by sitting down, closing my eyes and listening back on a rich system with my finger hovering over the F8 button (to make reference marks on the track) was really tough because I just kept welling up. This is very beautiful music and listening to it so intensely is quite draining. Which can only mean it's doing a good job!
I hope you love it as much as I do. Warts and all. I honestly do not think any further noise reduction would help anything.

B1) 'Love Will Find A Way'

The only problem with this track is some hot vocal mix distorting on the right channel between about 1:03 and 3:13 but it was no sweat to grab the left channel only on the hotspots. The mix is very narrow, almost mono, until the sax begins.. even then it's very narrow but when the crazy guitar solo begins it's a little more stereo :-) (although why they recorded the organ from 100 yards away is anyone's guess...)

B2) 'Memories Of Edith Johnson'

This was in all ways very straightforward :-)

So there you have it. I'm not letting you wonder... this is how it happened. Enjoy the music and don't worry. A lot of effort went into this x CY

Terrific release!
The packaging is awesome - the box, all the paper materials, polygraphy.
The sound is just superb - deep, dynamic, wide, detailed etc.
The pressing quality is top notch - not a single tick throughout all the records.
Ohh, the music… is something beyond.
And with all this it’s quite affordable boxset.
Six stars out of a five.

I have recently come to that owning original pressings are just as feesable and need to focus on some cool remaster/reissues. This is prime example of a really well put together package, as a very reasonable price.
Sound is really clear and up front…I agree with the one reviewer, it’s like being in the first row! The extras are amazing..just really cool add-ins..
Overall, a really nice box set! Highly recommended!!

On my copy the side A original version sounds like shit. Lots of high end noise and crackle pretty disappointed. Other tracks, LP and box set all very nice and sound good. Running it through the spin clean didn't help.

Great sounding pressing and what a package, great detail like the newspaperclipping which were reprodoced on both sides, the amazing pictures, posters and informative booklet.
Not that keen on collector's edition, it's all about the music for me, but [Rakim voice:]
this is how it should be done.

What a beautiful thing!

I wish more reissues were like that.