Search & Destroy: Sun Ra

wow how many verb tenses can I mess up in a single sentence

my hero

messiahwannabe, I don't know what you've listened to so far, but if you've turned to the live recordings to try to recapture what you liked in the live performances, I would suggest trying some of the studio recordings instead and maybe try to put aside expectations based on the live performances. I saw Sun Ra a bunch of times, and have seen the Arkestra without him quite a few times as well (I lived in Philadelphia until recently) but I often find the live recordings disappointing; and on the other hand, some of my favorite Sun Ra recordings are the ones featuring a smaller stripped down arkestra. But that might just be me. If nothing else, there is a wide range of opinion on this thread.

(So, on the other hand, if you haven't listened to many of the live recordings, maybe that's what you need to listen to, or maybe you are right and you really will just be disappointed again.)

The current Signal to Noise has a nice write-up/interview of Marshall Allen which then segues into general discussion of Sun Ra (some of it generic, some of it new to me, especially on the issue of preserving archival Ra-related material). And then more photos of Marshall Allen and company.

And a nice (everything is nice) wrap up of recent reissues and original archival releases (with helpful information about sound quality and what's on things and what's recommended by the author).

I think this is probably the recording of Astro Black I heard back in high school or back when I was an undegraduate. One of the Sun Ra tunes that got me interested in him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPXwnTlbCn8

Oh crap! That's for another post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk5jg5fo0kc

Actually, that's kind of disappointing. I remember it having more of a groove to it and being more like "Strange Celestial Road."

AWESOME

"where every month is 'black history month'"

lecture starts about an hour in btw

I continue to really wonder what the point of much of Allen's soloing is. It all ends up sounding the same to me. On the one hand you have John Gilmore, my favorite saxophonist ever, and on the other you have Marshall Allen consistently making discombobulated ugly sounds. I know this is a bit blasphemous for someone who considers himself a Sun Ra fan, but I have been listening to a lot of live Ra lately (I bought the big Detroit box set) and I can't avoid these impressions.

Also, much more generally, I don't tend to find that kind of full on free jazz blowing really "emotional" in a way I can recognize. Emotion needs to have more of a shape and form than that. It seems almost pre-emotional, just pure excitement-energy. Maybe that's what people like about it.

From way upthread: Listening to Allen's playing on some of those 60s and 70s Arkestra albums you can really hear where John Zorn got a lot of his ideas from.

I've never cared for Zorn's saxophone playing at all.

Fireside Chat With Lucifer is the shit

Search: Strange Strings (!!!), all ESP Disk titles, Magic City, Other Planes of There, The Solar Myth Approach, The Singles, The Great Lost Sun Ra Albums, Lanquidity, Fate In a Pleasant Mood, When Sun Comes Out, Space Is the Place (Impulse), Space Is the Place (OST)

Destroy: nothin really. Janus isn't that great. Not too psyched by the solo piano discs, but that's a personal quirk. ALso, I prefer the more 'out' stuff starting circa 1963 to the things before that. Again, a personal problem I'm sure.

anybody got any opinion on the recent doo-wop stuff reissues...? saw some of these at the store a few weeks ago and was curious but didn't feel like shelling out

Have not heard them but I'm not generally into his doo-wop (or any doo-wop for that matter). There is still a long list of other recent reissues I haven't gotten to yet that I'm convinced are great. If you can find that Signal to Noise discussion of recent Sun Ra reissues (mentioned above), it's worth checking out.

yeah I'm not really a doo-wop fan either, and particularly with stuff this early the actual sound quality is usually a bit of a barrier to my appreciating it. but I am curious

Have you heard any? I have Spaceship Lullaby on Atavistic and I can't say I've listened to it much.

The doo-wop items in The Singles collection are all pretty good & I'm not much on doo-wop in general myself. There is a certain quirkiness even there. Da Man couldn't help himself.

Very good. Spooky and slightly wonky. At least that's my recollection of Singles. Do you think that if you didn't know these were by Sun Ra, anyone could work it out?

damn herman really knew how to close out albums. "tristar" on 'somewhere else' is perfect

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