Ask The Ages Free MP3, Song Download, Lyrics, Album Track List

Ask The Ages

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Song	Lyrics	Save	Buy
PLAY QUEUE 1 Promises Kept		save
PLAY QUEUE 2 Who Does She Hope To Be?		save
PLAY QUEUE 3 Little Rock		save
PLAY QUEUE 4 As We Used To Sing		save
PLAY QUEUE 5 Many Mansions		save
PLAY QUEUE 6 Once Upon A Time		save

MOG Editorial Review

Early in his career, Sharrock had played with the jazz heavyweights, but wasn’t hearing much guitar innovation. Because of this, he looked to sax players like Ornette Coleman and began to play with distortion and dissonant tones, refusing to abandon melody, feeling the need to play "pretty" music, if that came at the expense of noise. With his wife Linda on vocals, his first band achieved a balance of anger, frustration and beauty. decades later he wrote the Space Ghost: Coast to Coast soundtrack, a great stab at skronky rock. But in the late-’80s Sharrock he sat down with sax great Pharoah Sanders, drum extraordinaire Elvin Jones, and bassist Charnett Moffett for Ask The Ages, turning out to be Sharrock’s most melodic and technically consistent release, borrowing from rock to play brilliantly in a jazz idiom. Everybody is in top form here, with an emotional content that can be felt deeply through the players.
AMG Review of Ask the Ages

Steve Huey
All Music Guide

Ask the Ages is Sonny Sharrock's masterpiece, and sadly it was also the last album he would record before his premature death in 1994. It's the most challenging jazz work he recorded as a leader, and it's the clearest expression of his roots as a jazz player, drawing heavily on Coltrane's modal post-bop and concepts of freedom. To that end, Sharrock reunites with Coltrane's old cohort, Pharoah Sanders, who featured Sharrock on his wild Tauhid and Izipho Zam LPs; what's more, Coltrane Quartet drummer Elvin Jones is on hand, as is young bassist Charnett Moffett. It's far and away the best, most adventurous, and most jazz-oriented backing group Sharrock recorded with during his comeback, and the results are breathtaking. The compositions are all Sharrock originals, and all six have utterly memorable themes that often recall the sweeping lyricism of Sanders' most spiritual '60s works. For his part, Sanders responds with some of his most ferocious playing in years, and Sharrock sounds vitally energized by the tenor's screeching passion. There isn't a wasted moment on the album, but particular highlights include the fiery, majestic opener, "Promises Kept," the searching ballad "Who Does She Hope to Be?," and the awe-inspiring blast-fest "Many Mansions," where Sharrock and Sanders both reach a blistering pinnacle. Listeners coming to Sharrock from rock & roll or his #Space Ghost Coast to Coast soundtrack might find that Ask the Ages isn't the nonstop skronk-fest they expected; it's his overall musicality that's on display, but there's still plenty that will scare the bejeezus out of timid jazzbos. It's a tragedy that Sharrock didn't get much of a chance to expand on this achievement, but thankfully it exists in the first place.