Promises

Sam Shepherd (aka Floating Points) gets top billing for having composed this 46-minute suite. The keyboardist and electronic music producer met with tenor sax demigod Pharoah Sanders in 2019, and completed the recording in 2020 with the violins, violas, cellos, and double basses of the London Symphony Orchestra. This cross-generational collaboration is more natural than it might seem; some of Shepherd's previous electric piano work has evinced an appreciation for the tranquility and restraint in Lonnie Liston Smith's use of the Fender Rhodes, heard first on Sanders' Thembi. To Shepherd's credit, his framework for Sanders is in the moment. There's no evident intent to evoke any point in the saxophonist's past, or even in maintaining continuity with the Floating Points catalog. Moreover, this is a fulfilling listen for those who hoped to hear more from Sanders the sideman on the 2019 and 2020 LPs led by Joey DeFrancesco and Bill Laswell. In the main, Sanders' playing is soft and lyrical,