ODEAN POPE’S SAXOPHONE CHOIR

An abundance of musical pleasure awaits you as jazz giant Odean Pope’s Saxophone Choir featuring Pharaoh Sanders and James Carter, commands the Clef Club stage, on April 24 and 25, 2020.  The Saxophone Choir is formatted with nine saxophones and it “reaches a stunning intensity that is simultaneously one voice and is also as described by The Village Voice jazz critic, Francis Davis as ‘harmonically engorged.’” The choir is the realization of Pope’s southern legacy; a medium for creating the richly textured harmonic sound that has permeated his musical soul since childhood. This two-day , 4 show event will be extraordinary.

ODEAN POPE, performer, composer and arranger has  received many awards and recognitions including the Mid Atlantic Living Legacy Award (2017), The Pew Fellowship in the Arts for Music Composition (1992), The Rockefeller Foundation (1992) several from the Chamber Music of America among others.

Odean was a member of the Max Roach Quartet for more than two decades. Played tenor sax and perfected the techniques of circular breathing and multiphonics, which when combined allow him to perform his renowned solo improvisations that range from “dazzling elevations to the throbbing, husky sounds…to all kinds of delicacy in getting from one to the other.”

PHARAOH SANDERS, NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship (2016) Released more than 30 albums as a leader

• The creation of the 30-minute free jazz “The Creator Has A Master Plan” in the 1970.This piece was reissued as “The Creator Has A Master plan (Trip Hop Remix) in 1994 and was a bonus track on the album Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool, which was named “Album of the Year” by Time magazine

JAMES CARTER, prominent on the jazz scene since the late 1980s, plays saxophones, flute and clarinets. He learned to play tenor saxophone under the tutelage of well-known Philadelphian Donald Washington and became of member of Washington’s youth jazz ensemble Bird-Trane-Sco-NOW!!  Washington also taught Grover Washington, Jr., and George Howard.

Carter’s Musical Highlights

• Won Critics and Reader Choice award for baritone saxophone from Down Beat magazine several years in a row
• Performed, toured and played in albums with Lester Bowie, Julius Hemphill, Frank Lowe & the Saxemble, Kathleen Battle, the World Saxopone Quartet, Cyrus Chestnut, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and the Mingus Big Band