Search & Destroy: Sun Ra

I've owned Heliocentric Worlds since I was a teenager, but I always found it a bit eerie. Then again I know nothign about jazz.. If it's not too gauche to ask - what am I listening to / for exactly? What makes this special? Is his other work like this? I need context, otherwise it's a lot of drumbling and plarping.

Which volume?

oh crap. Volume 1? I'm assuming so anyway - oppressive red and yellow cover with a big dome shaped head staring at you.

wiki says volume 1.

LOL. It's not my favourite Ra album either tbh. Quick skim through of this thread should give you an idea of his wide range. However he was doing a lot of "eerie drumbling and plarping" from 1964-1967

'what am I listening to / for exactly?'

Listen for any bits that grab you; if nothing interests you, don't listen to it. xp

Same as most music...

Resemblance, unintended I'm sure, to (opening?) music from "Citizen Kane" is one of the more amusing things about this album

My advice would be, don't listen to it/try to hear it as "jazz." It's not necessarily because it's not "jazz" (that's a whole other discussion), but because waiting for identifying characteristics of a genre might put constraints on your listening experience. A teacher of mine used to advise those of us unfamiliar with certain musics to just have it on in the background while doing other things in order to acclimate yourself with it.

Lanquidity has been one of my all time favorites for quite a while. It was the first record I dropped on the turntable after picking up a new stylus. Some of the solo piano stuff I've heard is just unreal, as well. I am also a big fan of the short film A Joyful Noise.

Although ambient music is music as background I never ever listen to music in that way. I'd say take your time, one or two tracks, but if you get bored with it don't force it.

Same w/ragas, do it for 10 mins or so if you must, but its part of the challenge to immerse yourself. xp

kinda with xyzzzz about not forcing it - if you don't hear anything that interests you then well, yeah whatever. it shouldn't be WORK, you know?

otoh, with regard to dl's specific questions:

What makes this special?

I can't remember the specifics of vol 1 at the moment and don't have it here at work, unfortunately. I will say that when it comes to his composed melodies (horn charts, piano pieces, etc) I am always struck by the bizarre way they're constructged - the melodies don't resolve how you would expect, the harmonies are very odd. he'll have these catchy repeated phrases but then have these strange, clashing chords underneath for example. he really doesn't sound like anyone else, which I think is special.

Is his other work like this?

I wouldn't say any single album encapsulates his broad range of approaches. Maybe the Impulse! version of Space is the Place, but even there not really. He has solo piano stuff, small-combo post-bop, total chaos free jazz blowing, synth workouts, space disco, Disney covers, tribal drumming, spoken word/poetry/call-and-response vocal pieces, pseudo-exotica... the list is pretty long.

The style of Heliocentric Worlds was partly motivated by Ra's wanting to satisfy ESP label owner's taste for modern classical music. It's got more of a modern chamber music feel than much of his work. I hear Other Planes of There as covering very similar material, but in a looser more distinctively Ra-like fashion. I'm not sure what to say about how to listen to it, aside from keeping that in mind. It's not one of my favorite Ra albums. Maybe try comparing it to Other Planes of There.

(Can't remember where I read that, but presumably in the bio Space is the Place.)

OTM, much prefer Other Planes of There

"black mass"

this is ... different

funny that, I was just on the puns thread looking at Ms Tree and trying to think what the quote was 'Some call me Mr Ra, some call me Mr Ree & some cal me Mr. Mystery' is that it?
& next thing I find is this thread is now at the top of the new answers board.

I really enjoyed his psychedelic sci-fi blaxploitation flick, Space Is The Place.

Five discs into the Complete Detroit set, I could keep going for some time

I was just about to delve back into that box (it's a heavy commitment that requires advance planning/schedule-clearing).

Disc 9 ... lotsa percussion freakouts, still great so far, only fatigue I have is from the recording quality which right now is just a little harsh

late great - I've never heard Black Mass, what's so unusual about it...? Is that the one with him at the pipe organ?

what's unusual is that it's actually a live recording of a play by amiri baraka with sun ra and band doing accompaniment in the background!

the effect is not so different from when sun ra and june tyson are declaiming back and forth but it's been much harder for me to interpret what's going on, i think the action on stage is probably crucial to understanding. on top of that i think the characters are supposed to be symbolic rather than literal (like i think one character is like the spirit of black consciousness or something) and the conversations are much harder to follow than the things sun ra is saying, possibly because of sound quality.

there are some awesome parts though. there is one back and forth between two or three characters where they're arguing iirc about whether black people can think non-black thoughts even though they have black brains, could just as easily be about whether people can think thoughts that transcend people brains.

BTW

if anybody likes the drone-ier / freakier / stereophonic workshop side of sun ra's solo explorations i would highly highly highly recommend checking out the new don preston reissue, "filters, oscillators and envelopes". i keep hearing it compared to dockstader or stockhausen but honestly to me it sounds a lot like when sun ra is jamming on his moog except he somehow captures the interplay of a really tight free jazz group

it's definitely one of the best experimental electronic / drone reissues or albums i've ever heard

That Preston records sounds cool. Your description of it reminds me of the recent Joe McPhee reissue (or rather, issue of old, previously-unreleased stuff) Sound on Sound. Lots of overdubbing, echoplex fun, and distinctly Ra-esque "space organ."

it's probably more difficult than that though, it's not so much like the space organ of things like night of the purple moon but more the full bore freakout of things like the early 70s black forest or paris concerts

ah right the amiri baraka one, yeah I've never heard that. never heard Astro Black either.

will give that preston CD another try. didn't slay me, though I'm glad to have heard it & there is definitely something very 'first' and free of any influence about it. I agree with you it's closer in spirit to 1970-1973 era Sun Ra Moog attacks than meticulously layered things like Dockstader, and the liner notes are top notch and capture an era that is never coming back

late great - I've never heard Black Mass, what's so unusual about it...? Is that the one with him at the pipe organ?

It's the one with the terrible acting. From memory, "Astro Black" is not very good, "Antique Blacks" is tho!

loving Night of the Purple Moon at the moment. what other stuff in his catalog is like this - small combo w/Ra on electronic/electric keys?

Disco 3000 I guess

holiday for soul dance iirc

parts of cosmic tones for mental therapy

"night of the purple moon" is kinda unparalleled though in the swingin lounge music category of sun ra albums

listening to youtubes of Antique Blacks - this is pretty wild! definitely veering into Miles Davis electric period territory

if you like antique blacks you should also check out the nidhamu & dark myth equation visitation reissue on art yard, both r dope

there's no such thing as too much ra imo

loving Night of the Purple Moon at the moment. what other stuff in his catalog is like this - small combo w/Ra on electronic/electric keys?

The first half of My Brother the Wind volume II is exactly like that. And Some Blues (But Not the Kind that's Blue) is small-combo-ish, but Ra's playing acoustic piano.

I can EXCLUSIVELY report that our own scott seward is listening to Sun Ra for the first time ever today! Earlier The Magic City, now We Travel the Space Ways.

Dude has quite the impressive Ra array in his store; he's never cracked one open before?

haha! actually i bought that album that came out in like 1988? the normal one. well, kinda normal big band stuff. and i think i heard one side of astro black. i think i actually might even own astro black. and i used to have that 2-disc singles comp of old stuff. a lot of that stuff wasn't actually sun ra though. stuff they put out on their label.

listening to Monorails and Satellites now. solo piano. don't know how i feel about it yet...

i'm definitely keeping The Magic City though. that's a record i know i will want to hear again.

Just before Demonoid went down there was somebody on there reworking the Detroit Jazz Cafe discs because apparently they had been mistransferred and gave a double image or something. I think he would have gradually worked his way through a lot of that material but the medium went down and I now don't know if he was continuing.

I love the band from around that era, seems to be amongst the more psychedelic stuff. Especially when he's electric and funky. IO think he covers some other styles in that set cos there's so much of it.

I just came across the repeat of the These advert for the box set further up the thread. If that set was selling for £45 I'm kicking myself for missing it.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511e00fsqJL._SS500_.jpg

This comp looks like a bit of a bargain, £8.99 on Amazon:

- Jazz by Sun Ra
- Jazz in Silhouette
- The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra
- another one I can't identify

Any thoughts? I'm relatively new to Sun Ra but have been enjoying the Singles comp loads. This set seems to concentrate on his early early output.

that one is "super-sonic jazz"

it is some of his more "pedestrian" stuff by which i mean there are no freakouts, special effects, weird instruments, overdubs, etc. it is mostly late 50s jazz played w/ a slightly skewed perspective, kind of like if you got four or five thelonious monks in a room together and let them jam in a room.

that said ... BUY IT

BTW i've never heard "jazz by sun ra"

instead of pedestrian i might as well have said "accessible", there is no more than a touch of avant-garde on this stuff

but i LOVE the three albums i've heard, especially super-sonic jazz, and i listen to them a lot

in fact, "futuristic sounds" was the first sun ra i ever bought, and i definitely didn't "get it" ... i was like huh? this isn't avant-garde freakout space jazz at all?!?!

I just looked at the John Szwed Space Is The place a couple of days ago for the first time in ages. I was looking for what he says on the late 70s/early 80s era and he barely touches on it. Seems to go over the whole era in a few pages.
Subsequently I'm wondering if there is anything that does go into things a bit more deeply. A critical discography or something, even if not a more in depth bio.
What other books are there on Ra?

i don't trust old records on cd that have been "enhanced".

oh and by the way, Atlantis! wow, what a record!

atlantis is pretty decent but the artwork is next-level! is that mighty cthulhu?!?

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/s346712.jpg

that said ... BUY IT

― the late great

thanks - will get on board. probably a fairly safe introduction to Sun Ra... which the Singles collection is not. it's all over the place (in a good way!!).

it's not really going to help you understand why people think sun ra is special but it's a great set of transitional bop/cool into post-bop/modal jazz and very accessible AND it's an awesome price, i paid at least 10 bucks for each of those