Search & Destroy: Sun Ra

Search: New ESP Disk release of College Tour Vol. I: the Complete Nothing Is. Tis sweet.

anyone seen the touring Marshall Allen & James Harrar’s Cinema Soloriens and the Cosmo-Drama thing? film with marshall allen leading a quartet in accompaniment. tickets are kinda $$$ and i'm dithering.

This reminds me that there's a reissue I'm about ready to buy now.

anyone seen the touring Marshall Allen & James Harrar’s Cinema Soloriens and the Cosmo-Drama thing? film with marshall allen leading a quartet in accompaniment. tickets are kinda $$$ and i'm dithering.

?? First I've heard - would totally go if I could afford it

Worth it:

http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/a/allen_marsh_nightlogi_101b.jpg

Allen is not resting on his laurels here at all: more classic flute playing, EVI (electronic valve instrument), saxophone both skronk and lyrical (and between). Shipp's playing not so far from Ra's a lot of the time here, though perhaps I am not doing Shipp's individuality justice by saying so (but at the same time it's kind of hard to see how the comparison can be construed as an insult).

that sounds great!

Allen is not resting on his laurels here at all

He is astonishing, he is EIGHTY SIX YEARS OLD and it is impossible to believe he is when you see him in the flesh - he really is from another planet!

huh thx for the heads up!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51v6sbCWwkL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

I bought Helsinki 1971 and am just getting to giving it a somewhat attentive listen to it now. It's a little further toward the wild and woolly side than I had hoped for (ergo, Vahid and those with Vahid's taste in Sun Ra should probably get it). I don't love it the way I was hoping to, but I like it and I could easily imagine it growing on me over time, because lots of Sun Ra has done that. What really hooked me is was hearing a snippet of the version of "Enlightenment" on this which uses an arrangement I've never heard before. It sticks to a familiar, bouncy, reggae-like approach to the song but in the background there is this incredible, delicate semi-classical flute and horn passage going. And it's not just unrelated--it's playing off the song. What's scary is how good it is and the fact that I've never heard it before and for all I know it was a one time thing (though probably not). Although, truthfully, I'm far more interested in what's going on underneath than in the singing and the loping rhythmic part. And then they march around the audience stretching the song out (which doesn't really carry over so well to recorded form in general, though it's okay here) and I hear what sounds like cosmic wind keyboard playing.

That Mohammed Abdo song I accidentally linked to from this thread is really good incidentally.

woah, what's 'Helsinki 1971', Rudipherous? you've convinced me. i don't see it at my usual outlets...

It's not difficult to find. It's one of those Transparency releases.

From that Signal to Noise article I mentioned earlier on this thread:

Sheppard expresses particular pride in the release of Live in Helsinki 1971: "My absolute favorite. It's two CDs of a radio broadcast of such high quality that it sounds like a missing studio album. It will include a nine-minute interview DVD from the same time that was only air once on Finnish TV, all of this licensed from the YLE, the Finnish state radio network."

Here's a decent blog write-up:

http://sunraarkive.blogspot.com/2009/07/one-of-gods-by-bennett-theissen-blog.html

I'm working on the second disc tonight and it's more accessible for me than the first. It's got a lot of the space chants turning into jams. Overall, I think this will gradually find its place as one of the key live Sun Ra recordings. Or maybe I just want to talk up my new CD purchase.

Disc 1 of Helsinki 1971 is hardly as inaccessible as I have made it out to be (especially relative to Sun Ra's overall catalog). I think I have just had difficulty finding an extended period of time when I have had the right sort of attention to listen to it. I mean, yeah, okay, some of the Marshall Allen soloing here is pretty crazed, but on Disicpline 8 that only comes after a very slow build up. This version is 34 minutes long.

I'm going to confess something. I bought the Detroit residency box set, the one with 20+ discs. I'm embarrassed I still haven't made it all the way through it, since I've had it for a while now. I can't listen to things properly in this apartment. The walls and floors are too thin; I won't crank things up to a suitable volume because I get annoyed when others do the same. Anyway, some day I'll have more to say about the Detroit box. It definitely has it's moments, though I had to admit that hearing so many versions of the same songs from the same time period tends toward overkill.

It looks good on the top shelf of my cheap-ass entertainment center.

Think I'll throw on Lanquidity this morning.

Lanquidity is an excellent choice. I'm also curious about this 20+ disc box of Detroit Ra. Never heard about that before, and it sounds like something I need to look into. Helsinki is something I had already made a mental note to check out, and I'm also curious about the other releases I'm coming across on the Transparency label. Any word on those, other than the Helsinki disc?

I have never understood what the MC5 and Spacemen 3 versions of "Starship" are based on. According to wikipedia the MC5 based their version on a "poem" of Ra's... except there's no lyrics. And as far as I can tell, Ra himself never released a song called "Starship". Can nnybody explain this?

... the MC5 version has lyrics?

no of course it doesn't!

u mad.
Norton recently released 3 LPs of Ra reading his poetry with Arkestra backing http://www.nortonrecords.com/lps_new.php

? let me spell it out a little more clearly:

1) The MC5 have song called Starship. It is credited to "Sun Ra". It has no lyrics. Wikipedia says the song is based on a poem by Sun Ra. This is obviously contradictory information.
2) To my knowledge, Sun Ra has never released a song called Starship. He may in fact have a poem called Starship, but it is not in the book of Sun Ra poetry that I own and no poem entitled Starship is listed in the tracklisting of that Norton Records release.

Starship as it appears on Kick Out The Jams has lyrics.

But IIRC the S3 cover doesn't.

? are u saying u are listening to Kick Out The Jams and can't hear

Starship, starship take me
Take me where I wanna go
Out there among the planets
Let a billion suns cast my shadow
etc?

i would guess that there is no poem by Sun Ra called Starship and MC5 pinched lines from various poems, then felt guilty/wanted a cool writing credit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sVp16KKn18

this song is one of the best ever. so lol

wow, I've never heard that (not a big surprise - I'm basically only familiar with 6 albums from the 60's)
anyways, the drumming is particularly excellent

argh sorry yeah I was mixing up the S3 and MC5 versions (it's been a loooong time since I listened to the Kick Out the Jams version). so yeah. the poem.

From ilxor's jazz thread:

jazz forms the basis for my understanding of genre & criticism in a weird way -- the amg guide to jazz was probably the first music crit i eve read (thnx ron wynn!) and for a long time i had more 'contextual knowledge' of that genre than any other ... so its hard for me to recommend stuff cuz a lot of it is like, sun ra made sense to me in the context of having listened to lots of duke & basie & not really connecting that much w/ certain styles of free jazz, coltrane's later stuff makes more sense to me having known his stuff w/ miles, etc ... like each album you hear helps create a constellation that becomes more fleshed out over time ... the other thing is that seeing a great live performance will help u understand jazz x1000 than if u just listen to 'historical albums' or w/e

tbh i say wait on sun ra. hes got a massive discography & a lot of it makes more sense in the context of having heard more jazz

― *gets the power* (deej), Friday, January 21, 2011 11:39 AM (2 days ago)

My sense is that it would be quite possible to get into Sun Ra, in particular, without having much background in jazz. I was drawn to some of his music before I really had heard much of what had come before. I'm not remotely suggesting that it's better not to listen to him in the large jazz context, but I think I could have enjoyed him with that background, and I don't see where my increased familiarity with earlier jazz has really changed my perception of Sun Ra's music. One thing is definitely true though: enjoying an immense amount of his music hasn't increased my appreciation for jazz in general. I'm sure there would be more to appreciate in his work if I had more of an overall love of jazz, but there's still a lot there to enjoy for someone who mostly isn't a fan of jazz in general. His language seems pretty unique to me. A side note: I think having seen the Arkestra live made it more difficult for me to get into some of the recordings that later became favorites (like the material collected on the Out There a Minute collection).

(like the material collected on the Out There a Minute collection).

post is real interesting so i feel bad for zooming in to geek out on this one, but i love this lp -- it's kinda a good mix of simpler stuff and things that are more adventurous without being too difficult; like there's somewhere in space, which is fun, but it lasts like eight minutes.

It's hard to agree on which one of a bunch of not very impressive albums riding primarily on mystique is the best.

― hey boys, suppers on me, our video just went bacterial (Hurting 2), Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:26 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

without taking genre names into account, i was a big Ra fan 15 years ago, before i knew much Ornette or Monk. tried Ra again the other day just to confirm and i think he's kind of phony and he definitely bores me these days

― KC & the sunshine banned (outdoor_miner), Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:34 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^^

surprising amount of snark directed at mr. ra in that thread this afternoon. idgi. i mean, he's obviously not to all tastes, but there's a sneering quality to to these posts that ILM usually reserves for "indie artists" and people who have the wrong opinions about rap.

Earlier tonight I had shuffle on while I was doing stuff and I hear something I don't recognize that sounds like a high school jazz band jam session except with organ. It was Sun Ra. [ /sneer]

lol sike I'm still sneering

Lanquidity is an excellent choice. I'm also curious about this 20+ disc box of Detroit Ra. Never heard about that before, and it sounds like something I need to look into. Helsinki is something I had already made a mental note to check out, and I'm also curious about the other releases I'm coming across on the Transparency label. Any word on those, other than the Helsinki disc?

― ImprovSpirit, Monday, August 9, 2010 1:13 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark

The Detroit set is consistently -- shockingly, even -- amazing. I almost regretted buying it before I heard it, assuming each disc would contain five minutes of great ensemble playing and/or soloing and 70 minutes of percussion/chanting, but that's not really the case. Inevitably, pieces are repeated throughout the set, but there's as high a proportion of Good Shit on this set as on any other Sun Ra release.

The Slug's Saloon set should be avoided, unless you think the Arkestra is best recorded/represented by a single microphone on the bass drum. There's also a set that purports to have Milford Graves in the lineup, but he's inaudible. The Horseshoe Tavern set should have been pared down to a single CD, as much of it, disappointingly, has the Arkestra phoning it in. The first disc-and-a-half of the Sun Ra All-Stars 5CD set has pretty dodgy sound quality, but when it improves, look out. Richard Davis is the standout player on this set, putting forth some of the most incredible playing of his career.

idgi. i mean, he's obviously not to all tastes, but there's a sneering quality to to these posts that ILM usually reserves for "indie artists" and people who have the wrong opinions about rap.

oh I think you get it. it's definitely a purist/"I HATE HIPSTERS" pose thing.

This Delft show from '71 is pretty incredible (amazed this hasn't been issued). The recently issued Paris show also from '71 is great. The Sun Ra mixes from Dr Auratheft (nine of them so far) are also worth hearing. And if you're looking for recommendations, NuVoid's writeups on Sun Ra releases are really helpful (even if for him most everything is 'essential').

Hm, Paris Tapes link should have been: http://www.rushhour.nl/distribution_detailed.php?item=55747

after feeling underwhelmed by the spate of recent art yard reissues of ra live in egypt, i'm really looking forward to the new space probe set

Uh oh, what's that?

press release

"An unusual record, mostly recorded in the early ‘60s with Ra, Marshall Allen, John Gilmore, James Jacson, Nimrod Hunt and Thea Barbara that explores stripped back forms and colour combinations - very far from jazz - and includes the extraordinary Conversation Of J.P. for piano and percussion. This and the opening track - probably recorded in 1970 - an 18-minute Moog solo, made just after Ra had newly acquired the instrument and was putting it through its paces, would make this an essential release in the Sun Ra canon – even without the rest of this excellent CD."

ooh!

recently watched the Sun Ra doc "Brother From Another Planet" - lots of great quotes from John Sinclair and others, used a lot of footage from "Space is the Place" and some other clips I've seen before - there was some unusually funky music in it, which I couldn't quite pinpoint. I just got "Lanquidity" and I don't think it was from that one... maybe "Strange Celestial Roads"...? What other sorta funk oriented stuff is there in his catalog?

watched the doc at Xmas around at a friend's place after getting it off Demonoid last year. Took me way too long before i watched it cos it is excellent.
As for spacefunk I think disco 3000 is also good. Seems to be a lot of stuff from about '78 to '82 in that area but there's also relatively acoustic Fletcher Hendersonisms around then.
found out that period actually starts by at least '76 when Cosmos appeared from thios thread.
There's also Nuclear War from the early 80s which was on the same label as the Pop group's Y if I remember right. Would like to find a lot more like Strange Celestial road though. Must check through live stuff.
Some of The Detroit Jazz Centre Xmas week 80 is in the area too. But there is a LOT of that to wade through. Also up on Demonoid.

80s Sun Ra goodies

may have posted this in some other sun ra thread but: http://fromnowherehere.blogspot.com/

just picked up Concert for the Comet Kohoutek today on CD

i would guess that there is no poem by Sun Ra called Starship and MC5 pinched lines from various poems, then felt guilty/wanted a cool writing credit

― zappi, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 8:08 PM

? let me spell it out a little more clearly:

1) The MC5 have song called Starship. It is credited to "Sun Ra". It has no lyrics. Wikipedia says the song is based on a poem by Sun Ra. This is obviously contradictory information.
2) To my knowledge, Sun Ra has never released a song called Starship. He may in fact have a poem called Starship, but it is not in the book of Sun Ra poetry that I own and no poem entitled Starship is listed in the tracklisting of that Norton Records release.

― from the lowly milligeir to the mighty gigahongro (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, December 16, 2010 1:13 AM

Kinda surprised this never got properly answered. The poem in question is called "There" (...is a land/Whose being is almost unimaginable/To the human mind," etc.) and Rob Tyson recites it as a climactic finish to "Starship". It appeared in the liner notes of Heliocentric Worlds Vol. II; dunno why it wasn't in the poetry book.

Fireside Chat With Lucifer - SO GOOD