Sam Shepherd, who records, composes and performs under the name Floating Points, talks about creating the album ‘Promises’ with the late Pharoah Sanders, and how he plans to bring the m…
They didn’t have much time, says Sam Shepherd.
“I asked him if he wouldn’t mind … leaving me there to concoct something, and it was a weird couple of days. I think I wrote nine or 10 pieces of music. One of them was ‘Promises,’” says Shepherd, referring to their gorgeous 2021 collaboration, which blends Sanders’ saxophone improvisations with Shepherd’s keys and electronics and string arrangements performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. “That’s kind of how the piece was born, out of a frantic writing session.
With the clock ticking, Shepherd worked and Sanders would check in. “Pharoah would come in occasionally just to hear what was happening. I remember him walking into the studio that one day after I’d recorded what was the background of ‘Promises.’ And he just — something was different about his face that day. He was kind of nodding, and he was like, ‘This is it,’” recalls Shepherd.
He studied jazz piano and composition, and he sang six services a week with the Manchester Cathedral Choir as a boy, which he describes as “hardcore” but formative for his musical education. “You’re becoming a professional musician without even trying because you’re a kid,” he says. “So in terms of musicianship, I think it was so good for me and I wrote a lot of music for that choir … Some of it still I think they sometimes sing it at the cathedral.
Shepherd and an all-star group of musicians, including Dan Snaith , Kieran Hebden , Kara-Lis Coverdale, Hinako Omori, Sun Ra Arkestra, the Los Angeles Studio Orchestra and more, are preparing a one-time-only performance at the Hollywood Bowl on Sept. 20. “I’m using a lot of people that are very dear to me, so the nice thing about the show is that everyone on stage is a good friend of mine,” says Shepherd, who has spent the last year composing the score for a ballet scheduled to premiere in San Francisco in January. “The spirit of Pharaoh … it has to live on.”“Promises” combines saxophone, strings, keyboards and electronics in one continuous piece of music, one so intimate that you can at times hear the touch of a hand on an instrument.
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