Pitchfork shared a lovely read about jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders who died at 81 this weekend - "a guy who saw music as a means to keep food on the table, as well as a route toward holiness... For Sanders, transcendence didn’t exist only in some rarefied other realm; it was something you worked at here on Earth, with your lungs, and your lips, and a good reed if you could find one". Sanders belonged, the P points out, "to a cohort of musicians who, in the middle 20th Century, threw open the doors of jazz to allow for fierce dissonances, extended instrumental techniques, and a new style of improvisation oriented toward freeform collective expression rather than individual solos". Vulture also shares a beautiful read about the saxophonist: "Sanders not only represented the heart and hustle of New York City, he embodied its communal spirit as well. Be it the volcanic peaks or meditative valleys of his work, Sanders always spoke a very clear message: Love is everywhere, and it always finds a way".

'Promises' is a collaborative project by producer Floating Points, saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra, but the one holding it together is - "Sanders, his warm tone and fluid technique undiminished even at 80 years old, listening to his surroundings and finding brilliant patterns to stitch the work together and thus elevate it", as Pitchfork hears it (tagged it Best new music also). The New York Times appreciates the unity of it: "When [Sanders] plays his final notes of the album... he does not so much disappear as become one with Shepherd’s web of humming synthesizers".