Search & Destroy: Sun Ra

if anyone here hasn't already read the "Space Is The Place" bio, that's very good as well

Art Yard's been doing some cool releases too, I have a double 10" of "lost archive" recordings that's pretty damn good

the pink one? i have a pink double 10” that’s amazing!!

yes, that one!

is anyone interested in doing a sun-ra-in-chronological-order listening thread?

i'd be interested in following along for sure

sure

yeah, I'd give it a shot!

okay, great.

it's my feeling that, after a brief look at sonny's work as a sideman in the 1940s + one of the singles compilations, it would be best just to move right through the arkestra records by release date (going by discogs as KM has been). when material is repackaged for a later release, or when the recording date(s) precede the release date by a significant amount, we can just address it in the thread. and, well, unless there's any objection to that i'll get this thread started in the next couple of days.

My friend saw one of the four Arkestra shows this past weekend. Marshall Allen is 93! Apparently he was supposed to sit some of it out, but I guess he played the entire time.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, January 1, 2018 4:42 PM (yesterday) Bookmark

i am not your friend (well, i would be if we met but I'm not the friend you're talking about) BUT i also saw one of these shows and he was scooting around the whole time, seemed energetic for a person of his age and his final note of the concert (on that weird electronic voice thing) was the final note i heard played in 2017. i liked that.

Compared to when I saw Pharaoh Sanders with the Underground Duo a bit back, and Sanders barely played anything of note (no pun intended) and merely shuffled around in oversized beat up sneakers like a dude who had seen better days. And Sanders is almost 20 years younger than Marshall Allen!

I got the Live At Montreux set finally cos I was in HonestJohn's just before Xmas.
I think it was the second thing I heard by them. So been meaning to pick it up for years.
I was looking at the 2cd compilation of the Detroit Jazz festival sets which I think had been released individually on Total Energy. Are they good.

one of those sets (Life Is Splendid) might be the best live gig I've heard of theirs

we have the Detroit Jazz Center residency set. maybe i will join by listening to all 26 hours, 13 minutes, and 16 seconds of it along with you all.

btw Lech, pick a day, gather the troops and let's all have a Chicago get together. At the least I'll be at Constellation this Saturday.

only if you promise to never call me that again ;)

gathering the troops is not my forte but i will deliver the message

we have probably already been in the same place at the same time a bunch of times!

I said Detroit Jazz Festival and meant Ann Arbor, getting bits of Michigan confused.I have a version of the Detroit Jazz centre as flacs. Think some of it is pretty good. I think the version i have may be one that repeats and I haven't gone through all the folders or discs yet.

there are 28 CDs!

I was thinking it was 26 or s but couldn't remember exactly.
Think i did hear taht the semi legal version did accientally repeat bits across a few discs.

THe Ann Arbor festival thing is called Wake Up Angels in its compiled form and has a bandcamp page here
https://sunrastrut.bandcamp.com/album/wake-up-angels

you all probably already saw this but:

Sun Ra in Chronological Order: An Arkestra Listening Thread + Related Solar Sounds

I got myself the Exotica comp for christmas and it's been a blast. It's really nicely put together and great sounding. I'd like to know more about who's in control of Ra's estate now as it seems like all of a sudden there are zillions of new releases & reissues.

Irwin is!

http://sunraarkive.blogspot.com/2014/09/exclusive-complete-interview-with-irwin.html

i too got a copy of exotica! so great. it’s been obvious for awhile that exotica is a big influence on his work but it’s really fun to hear it all compiled in one place.

i wonder how much of the influence was exotica-via-big-band (duke ellington's "caravan" e.g.)

or even this, from 1957:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTEmX1tHOVY

Irwin is!

― kurt schwitterz, Tuesday, January 2, 2018 4:20 PM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

at first i was like, bob irwin? that can't be right. and then i remembered irwin chusid, hence the interview link.

but then i was on the sun ra website (http://www.sunra.com/) and bob irwin gets a "thank you" at the bottom, so:

1. bob irwin is alive?

2. sundazed is involved w/ sun ra reissues?

ohhh i see. sundazed is the parent company of modern harmonic. huh.

thanks for the links- really cool. I'm so fascinated by how his music got preserved, maintained, and cared for. For someone so DIY and all over the place through every phase of his career, it seems like there should be hardly anything left, but instead there's scads of recordings & ephemera. It makes the sum total of Ra's work seem like all the more of a miraculous gift.

Speaking of xpost Art Yard, they've got a previously unreleased radio set, all of it posted here, and note other Ra linked from this same page:
https://sunrastrut.bandcamp.com/album/of-abstract-dreams

press release:
http://r.k7musicnews.com/7t3exsp9g7e.jp

UN RA - OF ABSTRACT DREAMS

Strut and Art Yard present another exclusive from Sun Ra: a previously unreleased radio session most likely recorded at the WXPN FM radio studios in Philadelphia, 1974-5.

This newly discovered session features a new version of Ra's earlier ‘Island In The Sun', a raucous rendition of ‘Unmask The Batman' and the first studio recording of ‘I'll Wait For You' There is no bass player on the sessions and Ra's left hand beats out a rhythmic bass pattern on the piano. All tracks are remastered directly from the original tapes. The album package features a cover photo by photographer Alan Nahigian and new sleeve notes by Paul Griffiths.

it is in fact credited to Sun Ra, not Un Ra (a name somebody might wanta risk litigation for, but his executors have to be cool, right?

never listened to much solo Sun Ra before, what an absolute marvel he was with just a piano as well as with his famous bands. listening to the Monorails & Satellites 3 volume collection of solo works today and so far it is A+.

it feels like you could go the rest of your life only listening to sun ra and never get bored

if i wanted to find out where sun ra lived during his chicago years, what would be the best resource? the szwed bio?

not sure if the szwed bio has specifics in terms of addresses, but it is a fantastic book nonetheless.

and yeah! i find something new and amazing in the sun ra universe every month it seems like.

like this solo electric piano show from 1980! holy shit. https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/haverford-college-1980-solo-piano

he has THE BEST song/album titles too

I got totally re-obsessed last summer, love those cheap Scorpio reissue pressings

somebody should revive the listening thread!

he lived in washington park. or do you mean the exact address?

i was just thinking about the other day. anyone who wants to take up the mantle should do it! i gave it a shot but ended up like that cat who is passed out in a pile of food

i meant address, like could you go see his old house? but mostly just curious.

xp

sorry, that was in response to:

somebody should revive the listening thread!

i was reading my kids this book yesterday, it's pretty cool:
https://pictures.abebooks.com/HONEYANDWAX/22861078024.jpg

i meant address, like could you go see his old house? but mostly just curious.

i bet the info is out there somewhere! i haven't ran across it, though, just the general neighborhood.

I was into the listening thread in theory but I just dunno how you overcome organizing the catalog

xp

it is brutal

like for one thing there's the issue of availability - not everyone would be able to hear everything, it's definitely not all on the 'net - and then how do you even order stuff (by date of release? recording?)

I use the Szwed book and go by date of recording fwiw, also file my LPs by whatever track on it was the earliest-recorded

I might be open to giving it a try if ppl are OK with that

i would be very ok with that!

OK let me prep over the weekend and see what I can do!

awesome, thanks! i think 1961 was next up, and i still have this handy collaborative playlist with an attempt to put everything in chronological order. i think it goes up to the mid-60s before i passed out in the cat food:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4dAK9bNAV6C8zrf9twZpk3?si=aX5sJqtsTwKmqTP-f-965g

thanks! yes I have that in my Spotify playlists - did you get all the way through the Chicago years, do you recall?

yep - looks like it ends at the same point as the thread, at the end of 1961, as he's moving to NYC