The Harvest Time Experiment is an ever- evolving live set-long iteration of Sanders’ iconic piece “Harvest Time,” from the seminal 1977 record Pharoah, recently re-released on Luaka Bop.

This record’s origin story is as elusive as Pharoah himself. It was born out of a misunderstanding between Pharoah and the India Navigation producer Bob Cummins, and was recorded with a group of musicians so unlikely that they were never all in the same room again. There was the guitarist Tisziji Muñoz, who would go on to become a spiritual guru, the organist Clifton “Jiggs” Chase, who would leave jazz to take a job at Sugar Hill Records, where he would co-write and produce “The Message” for Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and Bedria Sanders, Pharoah’s wife at the time and a classically trained pianist, who would play the harmonium on this record even though she had never seen a harmonium before. The confluence of surprising circumstances that surrounded the making of this record, though at the time seemed like limitations, only fueled its brilliance. It would go on to become one of Pharoah’s most beloved records, and would be recognized as one of the great works of the 20th century.

Never performed the same way twice, nor with entirely the same group, the idea is more of an experience than a cover of a song. It’s a high wire act that throws different entities together to create something new, based on some things old. It connects Pharoah’s past to our present, inviting people from his different generations to come together and interpret “Harvest Time” in a new way each time.

All shows have the participation of Tisziji Muñoz, the legendary guitarist on the original album, and the music director Joshua Abrams from Natural Information Society.