Obscure psychedelic jazz flutist Eric Ghost is known, if at all, for two privately pressed albums from the mid-1970s on the tiny Canadian label Gramophone: Ghost Plays For Mr. S. in 1974 and the cult classic Secret Sauce the following year. Both were fetching substantial sums at auction, though the latter was reissued in 2022 by Jazz Room Records.
Little is known about Ghost. His birth name was Richard Barth Sanders. He was also a close, longtime friend of jazz flute icon Jeremy Steig. His recordings are intense, funky, accessible, and wildly creative; Ghost took chances with tone, timbre, and effects and was a master of complex phrasing and harmonic invention.
We know that Ghost served in the U.S. Army during the early 1960s. His hitch took him to Morocco and Tangier, in particular, where he enjoyed the country's then-relaxed attitudes toward foreigners inside a steadfast Muslim culture. While in Morocco, he met many American and European travelers and expats, among them author Paul Bowles and artists Francis Bacon and Brion Gysin. After his discharge and return to North America, he embraced the emerging counterculture. We also know that in 1968, Ghost began manufacturing LSD in a trailer near Wappingers Falls, New York. He is credited with inventing blotter acid by developing and creating the machine that would administer pre-measured doses of LSD in a five- by the 20-drop matrix on a strip of blotter paper. The machine automatically cut the paper after every 100 doses. The blotter was called a "five-by-twenty" and wrapped in Kodak packaging for distribution across the country. Ghost produced roughly a million doses a month for several years.
We also know that he and Steig played together often and that the latter encouraged him to record. Ghost Plays For Mr. S. was issued in 1974. The title reference was not after Steig but rather a convict "...imprisoned for what today's society has defined as a felony." Reportedly, Ghost also met, associated with, and played with Rahsaan Roland Kirk during his final years, more than likely through a mutual friend and fellow flutist Dave Valentin.
The set consisted of two five-part suites titled Darkening of the Light and Deliverance.
His second album, Secret Sauce, was recorded in Vancouver in March 1975. A very different outing, it was composed of six extended jazz/psych compositions played by a studio band consisting of upright bassist Lincoln Goines (Bob Mintzer), electric bassist Tom Hazlitt (Paul Horn), Canadian session drummer/percussionist Jim McGilvray (Skywalk, Metallica, the Cult), and pianist Bob Murphy (Joani Taylor, Michael Buble).
In 1977, Ghost was arrested and convicted of unlawfully manufacturing LSD and sentenced to prison for seven years. He was released in 1984 and dropped out of sight. In 2022, London's Jazz Room Records, run by DJ Paul Murphy licensed Secret Sauce. The reissue marked the first time the recording included the proper track sequence. AMG.
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