Ask the Ages

SONNY SHARROCK

Axiom

One of the leading exponents of avant-garde jazz guitar, Sharrock, who died in 1994 at age 53, led an all-star band on the splendidly cacophonous Ask the Ages. He's joined by Coltrane alumni Elvin Jones (drums) and Pharoah Sanders (sax) and bassist Charnett Moffett, 24 at the time. Although there are plenty of improvisational spazz-outs here, Sharrock's compositions start out as relatively accessible, and then disintegrate to varying degrees from there. Call it swinging, out-there, heavy metal fusion.

This article appears in Apr 26 – May 2, 2006.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...