Promises, the great Pharoah Sanders’ collaboration with Floating Points was a notable album of 2021, and a consolidation of the legend status of the former, a Trane disciple who has become a messiah in his own right over some five decades. This celebration of his songbook by New Zealand-born, London-developed and Los Angeles-based keyboardist-producer Mark De Clive-Lowe is a fitting rejoinder to the aforesaid record, a nod to Pharoah's stature as a composer as well as an ‘energy player.’

Recorded live at the small but storied LA venue The Blue Whale, the music has the intensity for which the saxophonist is known, particularly on ‘You Gotta Have Freedom’ but more importantly it conveys the great serenity of his many sublime rhapsodic ballads, such as ‘Astral Travelling’ and ‘The Creator Has A Master Plan.’

De Clive-Lowe leads very well on keys, infusing subtle mists of electronics into the ether while Teodross Avery, a 1990s saxophonist who's faded mysteriously from view, acquits himself impressively on the heady modal grooves. Having said that, vocalist Dwight Trible, who is to De Clive-Lowe what Leon Thomas was to Pharoah, takes the session to another level through the sterling, gospelised power of his tone and tightly controlled phrasing. It is serendipitous to hear him in this setting just as live recordings he made with LA independent jazz icon Horace Tapscott in the mid 1990s are being reissued. Histories aplenty are thus to the fore on this enjoyable session.