Search & Destroy: Sun Ra

Haha, It's worth a try!

Ok, At a guess I'd say 70's at the earliest, maybe 80's. It was quite a clear, professional sounding live recording. The stand out thing of the track is the riff that gets repeated by the horn section (mainly trumpets, if I remember) and builds up, it's fairly slow tempo.

Is that any help?

Space is the Place?

first thing that came to mind was 'that's how i feel'

Tracks I have from that era that are between 10-20 minutes long:

"There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of)" - Lanquidity
"Dark Lights in a White Forest" - Omniverse
"Intensity" - Lost Tones
"Somewhere There" - Outer Spaceways Incorporated
"Omnisonicism" - Lost Tones
"A Fireside Chat With Lucifer" - A Fireside Chat With Lucifer
"Space is the Place" - Space is the Place
"Life is Splendid" - Life is Splendid
"Sleeping Beauty" - Sleeping Beauty
"Say" - Strange Celestial Road
"I'll Wait For You" - Strange Celestial Road

A bunch of these are slower, ballad-type pieces and don't bear much similarity to "VIP".

There's also a bunch of longer live tracks on the Live at the Ann Arbor Jazz Festival albums, but I have those at home. "Strange Celestial Road", "On Jupiter", and "Disco 3000" all have some p long tracks iirc but I don't have them here either.

listening to Secrets of the Sun - forgot Calvin Newborn was on this, so weird to hear that thick, nimble R&B/jazz guitar on a Sun Ra record

Wow, thanks a lot for going through the trouble, appreciate it. After going through a box of about 100 unlabelled mp3 cd's I've found it - 'Adventures Outer Space' from 'Calling Planet Earth'.

Basically it's nothing like how I described it apart from sounding a bit like that Fela Track - It's only about 7mins, not a great recording and from the 60's - sorry about that.

Could have sworn it was longer, maybe anyone knows if there's another longer version out there, under a different name possibly?

lol I don't even know that one at all

ILX alumnus Andy Beta on Marshall Allen-selected Sun Ra and His Arkestra's enticing double-album overview, In The Orbit of Ra:
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19736-sun-ra-and-his-arkestra-in-the-orbit-of-ra/

the first disc of the comp is really amazingly well put-together

nice review

does not sound like the kind of thing I need to own tho lol

Roartorio Records is releasing an unreleased Sun Ra album from 1972 next month

In 1972, Sun Ra inked a high-profile deal with ABC / Impulse, bringing his recorded work to the widest audience he’d had to date. A slew of Saturn back catalog titles and two newly-recorded albums (Astro Black, Pathways To Unknown Worlds) were issued before ABC cancelled the contract, dumped the records into the cut-out bins, and left the unreleased albums to languish. Now, over four decades later, Roaratorio is proud to offer one of the lost Impulse recordings for the first time. Sign Of The Myth hails from the same studio session as Pathways, and shares its emphasis on guided improvisations. With a constantly shifting palette of Moog textures, Ra tosses off a dazzling array of ideas throughout, supported by the usual Arkestra stalwarts; in particular, bassist Ronnie Boykins and drummer Clifford Jarvis are in shining form here, giving shape and solidity to these pieces. Sign Of The Myth is a welcome augmentation to an especially fertile period from Sun Ra’s time on Earth. Download coupon included.

https://soundcloud.com/roaratoriorecs/sun-ra-his-astro-infinity-arkestra-the-truth-of-maat

Cool! The Other Strange Worlds record Roaratorio put out is pretty great (though it isn't quite the "Strange Strings part 2!" the sticker claims).

ooh yeah that sounds good

I have never heard Astro Black :(

i don't know, i have more than 50 sun ra albums and i found the first disc of the comp surprising and engaging

Me neither! I used to see it used all the time, but never picked it up because I assumed it was a repackaging of a Saturn thing I already had.

xp

I saw it only once, on the wall at Dusty Groove in Chicago and it was $75

the first disc of the comp is really amazingly well put-together

― the late great, Monday, October 6, 2014 2:25 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, i have most of this music on other records but i'm really enjoying listening to this. i like the way it juxtaposes a number of eras of sun ra's bands in a way that feels cohesive

and the world really /was/ in need of a kind of sun ra best-of. his discography is kind of the definition of "daunting."

first disc makes a good case for sun ra as the GOAT "exotica" artist

there is a best-of already. 'Greatest Hits: Easy Listening For Intergalatic Travel'

The first disc is getting all the hype...what's the second one like? Thinking of picking this up.

the new comp is definitely excellent.

http://cdn8.openculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/SunRa71.jpg

http://www.openculture.com/2014/07/full-lecture-and-reading-list-from-sun-ras-1971-uc-berkeley-course.html audio & some text (backstory re latter)

Disc 1 seemed too becalmed or detached for a while, but opened up during the last quarter, and all of Disc 2 grabbed me right away. Think I'll get it when got a little more $.
Lost Reels, it says here, with a little background for performances from Berkeley, ca, summer '71, and unknown location, some time in '72. Performers listed incl. Allen, Gilmore, Patrick, Boykins, Danny Davis, June Tyson. Haven't had time to listen yet, but this site is fairly reliable:
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=2150

Are the Lost Reel Collection discs out of print? The first two or three were great, but the fourth one (I think) is serious barrel-scraping. The musicians are literally making fart jokes during the rehearsal. Which...ok, in the context of Ra, that's actually pretty funny.

According to the site, this is Vol. 2 (of the series on the Transparency label, dunno if anybody else put 'em out).

So, despite having 23 Sun Ra albums / 122 songs in my iTunes (and more on vinyl), I need some assistance here. I'm in agreement with those of you (on this thread or another, I forget) that the new Marshall Allen-curated comp is a really great, smooth comp despite the odds. This is the first time I've heard "Spontaneous Simplicity," and I just love it: the trance-inducing basslines, the funky flutes straight off a good Roy Ayers LP, an extremely far out, stoned-sounding piano solo, clattering group percussion; it's some of my favorite Sun Ra I've heard (and I've heard my share). I went to Discogs to see what album the song appears on, and it seems to appear on two albums with identical track titles and sequence. So, can I assume that Pictures of Infinity and Outer Spaceways, Inc are the same record, repackaged? But the plot thickens: the version of "Spontaneous Simplicity" on this In The Orbit Or Ra comp ends with applause. Could it be from a live album? Ugh, it's so difficult navigating this crazy discography! (Fun, though!)

Also, has anyone heard this / these LPs? Are they generally in the vein of "Spontaneous Simplicity?"

Oh, an as a side note, I'm bummed that this track appears on the CD version of Allen's comp, but not the LP version. D'oh! Surely we could have subbed out "Somebody Else's World" for this one!

Pictures of Infinity/Outer Spaceways Inc. is a live album from '71- I think that version is the one on the comp based on track length. Looking at my iTunes (198 Sun Ra songs from about 13 albums) it looks like I have three different versions. I have one, four minutes long, on a comp of Warner free jazz- probably late sixties. Another is from the reissue of the 1978 "Disco 3000" live record- it's fourteen minutes. The last is from an archival release called "Music From Tomorrow's World" dating to the Chicago days, so Spontaneous Simplicity was kicking around for a while. Anyway my memory is that Pictures of Infinity has a fair amount of free stuff on there as well- a live record from this period I like is "College Tour Vol. 1", which has a bunch of stuff from his '66 college tour. I get a kick out of Heliocentric Worlds-era Ra doing old Chicago hard bop tunes like "Velvet".

And I won't have you talking trash about "Somebody Else's World"!

yeah! that's my favourite from the recent comp!!

Whoa, thanks for the info. I'll have to track down those other versions you speak of. Perfect thing to do on a snow day like today. Take that, gainful employment!

And I like "Somebody Else's World" just fine, though I frequently (maybe generally) find the chant-y, June Tyson stuff a little goofy; often seems to break whatever spell has been cast by the instrumentals.

I have Pictures of Infinity (on vinyl for some reason, Black Lion is the label iirc), it's great, get the whole thing

the new(ish) comp is great, simply because although i own probably 20 sun ra records, it's helpful to be reminded of some of the highlights, and to be given a kind of tour of all his modes and periods.

Yeah, it's really great. It's definitely responsible for the 'kick' I'm on right now. Man, "Ancient Aethiopia" is just incredible.

Art Yard is getting ready to reissue Pat Patrick's solo LP!
https://www.facebook.com/ArtYardRecords/posts/1095604917132453

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAA-pwiWsAM3ZfF.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAA-pxLW4AAYMEf.jpg

Source:

Sun Ra Arkestra ‏@SunRaUniverse 9m9 minutes ago

Sun Ra and Arkestra - Hot Hits fresh from the Sun.
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Ha, that is so cool.

I remember Phil Schaap in the BBC doc on Ra saying, "You'd send your $6, and maybe two years later, you'd get your records. Of course, they cashed the check two years earlier."

ah nice (*some* of this is from the xpost iTunes stash, but)
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6575766/new-sun-ra-recordings-fall-2015-exclusive

Irwin Chusid, the administrator for Sun Ra LLC

how did he get to be in charge?

yeah, i did a double take at that

deeply suspicious of the whole :outsider music: concept, and as strange as he was (not always in healthy ways), i think it's a bit of an insult to apply it to sun ra.

wasn't the whole point of the "afrofuturist" thing – sun ra, scratch perry, george clinton – a deliberate attempt to be outsiders, though? to place themselves outside of the world's shit constraints on black people by way of an aesthetic vehicle that proclaimed otherworldliness?

though i get that they're not "outsider art" in the way daniel johnston or wesley willis is said to be, true

right but i think the "outsider art" tag inevitably trivializes/reduces them as it does most folks.

Trivialize vs formulating shorthands for things you are seeing. I know "outsider music" expert is funny but still.

How can you be strange in a healthy way?

people are healthily strange all the time!

i dunno the 'outsider art' tag tends to collapse a lot of different and varied phenomena into a category that doesn't do any of them justice.

usually it's something like 'art brut', implying a lack of formal training. but i don't really know what that mean in the jazz world. sun ra had about as much training as any other jazz musician of his generation. and all the space-age trappings aside (not that they are trivial!), the shifts in his music track broadly (ok, very broadly) with changes in the forms of jazz over the mid-20th century. he was paying attention to what was going on and folks were paying attention to him.

otm. not excited about Chusid's involvement

well for all we know he's an excellent steward of the music.

Chusid's "outsider music" stuff is only one small part of what he does. He also worked on this compilation, for example, and put together a bunch of great compilations of Raymond Scott's music in the '90s.

I don't think 'outsider' dilutes but concentrates a few things that could be simply deemed unclassifiable and not thought about. Brings a few things into focus. Didn't like the way it was used so probably not the best time to talk about this.

re: music and our distance to the person and/or groups means that it can be a hard call to say what is/isn't strange in a healthy way.