Search & Destroy: Sun Ra

You know, vahid, seriously, you should get Janus as a companion to Solar-Myth Approach. There are some similarities. Weird amorphous vocals with that irritating ehcoey sort of sound from Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy.

hm! i've never even seen that one. i'll keep an eye out ... i went through a phase of only listening to "quiet place ..." and "cosmos" and "live at nuits maeght festival 1+2" and "solar myth approach 1+2" ... gotta go back to the classics now ...

how is "sleeping beauty", i keep seeing that used at amoeba.

just got Foundation Maeght Nights vol 1 - only listened to side 1 so far but I dug it a bunch, thanks for the rec. Keepin my eyes out for Futuristic Sounds but haven't seen it yet...

um no wait its Volume 2 - anyway I like it, now must find copy of Volume 1

is it strange to find a sealed vinyl copy of "My Brother The Wind" on Saturn? 'Cause I just did. Will report back. Have not heard the Foundation records.

If anyone's wanting to convert the uninitiated, I'd recommend the Evidence 'Fate in a Pleasant Mood/When Sun Comes Out' CD. It was the first I ever got, almost exactly 10 years ago, at the tender age of 18. 'Fate in a Pleasant Mood' from 1961 is a uncommonly serene, pleasant record, even compared to the earlier albums, and is likely to appeal even to folks who can't even handle Coltrane or Mingus. But then 'When Sun Comes Out' as enough in the way of more "out-there" stuff and percussion pieces to make the curious listener want to go into the records that followed: 'Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy', 'Other Planes of There', 'The Magic City' and so on.

is it strange to find a sealed vinyl copy of "My Brother The Wind" on Saturn?

It is if it's an original pressing...but a great many reasonably-priced Saturn reissues are readily available.

Definitely worth seeking is the all-too-brief "Sleeping Beauty" from 1978. Features some of John Gilmore's most fantastic playing...Art Yard Records did a beautiful, great sounding LP reissue a year or so ago.

'Fate in a Pleasant Mood' from 1961 is a uncommonly serene, pleasant record, even compared to the earlier albums, and is likely to appeal even to folks who can't even handle Coltrane or Mingus.

But it's still very distinctly Sun Ra's music. Not that I thought you implied otherwise, but I just wanted to throw that in there. I don't think it's a "Here's a Sun Ra album that doesn't really sound like Sun Ra, so you might like it" type of thing.

"Here's a Sun Ra album that doesn't really sound like Sun Ra, so you might like it"

Like handing someone a copy of Lanquidity. That doesn't even sound like the other records he cut that same year.

Well, see I'm not sure I'd agree with that either, but I don't want to get into a debate about that one. (But see Milton Parker's comments above.)

I was having doubts as to whether Solar-Myth Approach was as great as I initially thought, but most of it is so pure, it's fantastic. It's that sound that is so much his own. You have to just let the tracks come and go though, you can't try to grasp it. Three minutes of the most beautiful, poignant little melody that just evaporates and then it's on to another piece of the musical sampler.

Indeed, Rockist Scientist, that wasn't what I was implying.

However, I should say that I especially like 'Fate in a Pleasant Mood' because I've never liked the earlier albums much, and have always been a little confused about albums like 'Sun Song' and 'Super-Sonic Jazz' getting high accolades and too much attention relative to all other Sun Ra.

I don't like the stuff from before Fate in a Pleasant mood as much either. In the right mood, I enjoy some of it. I see Jazz in Silhouette recommended particularly often by jazz fans to other jazz fans. I guess for people who really like hard bop, that's a good starting place.

(I've decided again that the beginning of Solar-Myth Approach is a little lacking. There are better examples of similar things elsewhere in Sun Ra's catalogue. But some tracks are just heavenly.)

Disco 3000 is apparently getting an expanded CD reissue that will include the full set from the show

SUN RA LIMITED EDITION 28 CD sets
£45 on this pre-announcement.
Plus Postage Costs
Scheduled release in 2 weeks
Please order as soon as possible, there are only 300 in total, we only have a few of them and
I’m sure they’ll vanish fast.

SUN RA
and the Omniverse Jet Set Arkestra
The Complete Detroit Jazz Centre Residency
December 26, 1980 - January 1, 1981
28 high quality CD-Rs with three-colour printing on
each disc in custom-made cases with poster-size insert with
track listings. High quality desk recordings.
Total time: over 26 hours

Only a few extracts from these eleven concerts have ever been previously released. On the three New Year's shows there is no song overlap, and they perform at least NINETY (!) Sun Ra compositions in one night.

We managed to secure some of these, while they last and are offering
them to our mailing list before anyone else.

IT’S NOT ON THE WEBSITE - CONFIRM YOUR BOX BY REPLYING TO THIS EMAIL!

Total edition limited to 300 copies.

ReR Megacorp
79 Beulah Rd.
Thornton Heath
Surrey CR7 8JG
UK
44 (0) 208 771 1063
www.rermegacorp.com

Crikey!

I can't in good conscience purchase this right now, unfortunately

excessive

why do nerds love excess so much

Last night KCSM (San Francisco) played NPR's 'Jazz Profile' of Sun Ra: 'Cosmic Swing'. It was... out there.

I don't have time to read this whole thread now, but I will say that I've been really enjoying "... Visits Planet Earth" from '66. I like a lot of his sixties work, especially with Ronnie Boykins on bass. Has some great, almost kraut-ish groove action as well as fine larger-band arrangements.

Lots of new videos up on youtube. This is from around the period when I saw them for the first time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPrsMUFXnqs

Enlightenment

Current Arkestra sounds really solid here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbw0WrZsRRw

It's been a few years since I've seen them. Maybe before I leave Philly, I can get up the energy to go out and see them again.

Uh, actually it's a cover band. Well, the cover band sounds pretty solid.

I was starting to think, wait, where is Marshall Allen? How come I don't really recognize anyone? I am disgraced.

Recent spate of Sun Ra reissues and first-time releases of archival material:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?rs=301668&page=1&rh=n%3A301668%2Cp_32%3Asun+ra&sort=-releasedate

(I'm not in a buying mood but I'm sure I'll be getting to some of this in the next year or two.)

Space is the place!

yeah, sort of a motherlode, right?

i picked up "creator of the universe", "strange strings" (already had a bootleg), "disco 3000"

very interested in "some blues", "night of the purple moon" and the rest of the sun ra tapes series ...

ms f0zi has been buying and listening to the sun ra research discs, i can't say i'm totally into these but then again she's more into the solo piano stuff than i am too.

i think one thing about these obscure 70s recordings that bothers me is the lack of big horn sections and group chants.

"sun ra tapes" should have been "lost reels"

some of the lost reels are very heavy on chants, i think

"disco 3000" has some ultra-berserk synth solos, if that's your thing. up there with the black forest concerts.

re: "black forest concerts", i also never mentioned buying "black myth / out in space"

http://i20.ebayimg.com/03/c/01/a3/3e/f3_7.JPG

which is the UNabridged version (with verbose notes) of the "it's after the end of the world" concert

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf800/f876/f87697b4cv8.jpg

i slammed it upthread for being chopped up, not having liner notes, etc

you gotta admit it has a nice cover, though

I remember really like the solo piano concert that ws issued on Leo, perhaps bcz I ws (stupidly) expecting it to be a kind of microcosm of his orchestral music...quite a slow-burner.

so many reissues... a friend loaned me the double CD Disco 3000 reissue, that was great

we got "Purple Moon" at the radio and I dubbed it but haven't listened to it in full yet.

(haha xpost here) so much stuff coming out, still. 4 boot CDs were just torrented on D!m3 a while ago after surfacing on eBay.

media dream >>>>>>>>>>>>>> disco 3000

media dream is incredible. thanks, art yard.

(ps i thought disco 3000 was sort of mediocore)

i still have no idea where to begin! (guess i'll read this thread, then.)

so ... is it just me or are "on jupiter" and "sleeping beauty" more destroy than search?

Search: SOLAR MYTH APPROACH 1&2
Destroy: Atlantis (I know, weird, right? But I find it boring)

I'm not into Atlantis either. I haven't heard On Jupiter or Sleeping Beauty (except maybe in parts).

I am amazed that people can actually listen to Sun Ra. After listening to the Quasimoto album, I was really excited to get into him. Sadly, I don't think I could have been more disappointed. Maybe by a stroke of bad luck I bought his most unlistenable album (Atlantis), but it is fucking painful to listen to and I'm afraid to get anything else of his for fear of the same thing happening.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying -- Atlantis = boring lo-fi noodling with cool album cover and general mystique.

perhaps your problem is where you live? do you live in your parent's basement? it's impossible to *really* get sun ra unless you live in your parent's basement.