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

pretty soon i'll be in a spot where i can resume weekly updates to this. if anybody's interested in a reboot

hell yeah!

hell yes

I’ve been meaning to get into Sun Ra, so count me in.

yessss

fwiw for budo jeru, here's my unofficial list of what we still have to cover:

taking a chance on chances 11/77

1978
new steps
other voices, other blues
Of Mythic Worlds side A (April ’78)
media dream 2CD
sound mirror
disco 3000
lanquidity LP
the other side of the sun
the spirit of jazz cosmos (WUHY live)
solo keyboards (Minnesota 1978)
visions (w/Walt Dickerson)

1979
song of the stargazers
on jupiter LP
sleeping beauty FLAC
strange celestial road
god is more than love could ever be
omniverse
I, pharoah
live from soundscape

1980
sunrise in different dimensions
voice of the eternal tomorrow
aurora borealis
dance of innocent passion
beyond the purple star zone
oblique parallax
haverford college 1980

1982
ra to the rescue
just friends
(a fireside chat with lucifer) FLAC
celestial love FLAC
nuclear war

1983
Paris 1983 (Bandcamp)
meets salah ragab
stars that shine darkly
love in outer space (live in utrecht)

1984
live at praxis 1-3
star that shine darkly vol. 2
cosmo sun connection
when spaceships appear

1986
hours after
reflections in blue
phil alvin?
john cage meets sun ra?
a night in east berlin

1987
v/a bratislava jazz days (1 track)

1988
hidden fire 1 & 2
“pink elephants on parade” from stay awake
cosmo omnibus imaginable illusion
Blue Delight
somewhere else (a)

1989
second star to the right
stardust from tomorrow
Purple Night
somewhere else (b)

1990
live in london 1990
“egyptian fantasy”
pleiades live
mayan temples
live at the hackney empire

1991
live at inter media arts
friendly galaxy
at the village vanguard

1992
Live in Ulm 1992
destination unknown
a tribute to stuff smith
“I Am the Instrument”

great.

sleeve, that looks good. i'll cf. the discos i have and get something posted next week

Taking a Chance on Chances
November, 1977
first released as Saturn 772 (LP) in '77
aka "a tonal view of times tomorrow" and "saturn research"

https://i.discogs.com/HQGuDoSuCsPTT5JXH5M-ZTZ-WJVOGQDrVt05zq1PNMU/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:598/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI0MTM3/NzktMTYxNzYyNTc3/MC03OTkyLmpwZWc.jpeg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOKbOvBGRN0

This was recorded in Chicago and is from the same session that produced the previously-discussed companion LP, SOUL VIBRATIONS OF MAN.

I dig how funky and bluesy this rendition of "St. Louis Blues" is. Also am all about this clippy, cosmic organ version of "Take the 'A' Train."

////

I'm consulting the classic Trent/Campbell disco (ed. 2) and the newer Geerken/Trent disco (Art Yard) as well as sleeve's list. Next week we'll close out 1977 with three solo piano performances recorded in Italy, before moving into 1978 w/ NEW STEPS.

(i just moved and finally got all my books out of boxes, so hopefully that will mean i can update more regularly from here on out ...)

wooooo thanks, will listen later

this album is prob one of the most glaring examples of the many well-known issues with original Saturn pressings. from the Bandcamp reissue liner notes (digitally, this is effectively a different release entirely)

As for the manufacturing flaws in Taking a Chance, here's a description by blogger Rodger Coleman: "The pressing defect manifests itself in a woefully unbalanced stereo presentation and a near-constant overlay of scratchy noises and horrifically ugly distortion which only begins to clear up towards the end of the side. Ugh. Pressing the mono button helps a little (if you have one) but not much. As listeners to Soul Vibrations already know, these are not great-sounding recordings to begin with; the pressing flaw renders them almost unlistenable."

We can attest, having borrowed a sealed Saturn original from our friend Freddie Patterson, who allowed us to slit the shrinkwrap and drop a stylus in the LP's virgin grooves. Hoping to discover the world's only sonically pristine copy for a premiere reissue, we were disappointed to hear on Side A the "horrifically ugly distortion" described by Coleman. (Someone suggested we issue it that way for its "exotic mix." We demurred.)

Fortunately, Michael D. Anderson of the Sun Ra Music Archive unearthed a tape in 2016 that proved to be the closest thing to a "pristine" version. It's got problems, sure, but compared to the Saturn pressing, it's Rudy Van Gelder-grade. For the first time, we can hear what Side A was intended to sound like. The recordings capture some incidental noise (beyond applause) from patrons, but these artifacts convey an intimate club atmosphere and are not intrusive.

(that's all re: Side A)

https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/taking-a-chance-on-chances

lol sorry to continue to geek out over this one, but there's also an unreleased track on the digital version:

A bonus track has been added:

"The Sound Mirror" (9:03, stereo)
This is a previously unissued recording. A regrettably lo-fi 14-minute version was issued as the title track on Saturn 19782 in 1978. This performance, believed to date from late 1977 or early 1978, features a tighter arrangement and greater sonic clarity.

so I guess that means they won't reissue the OG version of Sound Mirror?

i guess not!

and this thread is here for you and everyone else to geek out, as far as i'm concerned.

bit of a detour, but i just found out that Irw!n Chu$id is a right-wing crank? although unlike others on the board, i'm not an avid WFMU person, so maybe that's already well-known around here. it's just kind of jarring to be reading this dude's extensive archival commentary on Sun Ra of all people, only to go to his website and find him talking about things that i won't even bother invoking on this thread.

anyway, "lady bird" is one of my favorite tunes, by one of my favorite composers-arrangers. one of the things that has become clear to me (or rather is continually being brought to my attention in different ways) in the 4.5 years since starting this thread is that Sun Ra, as singular and "outsider" as he often is, was also of course in deep conversation with his contemporaries and the broader history of jazz music -- in ways that are actually super exciting and even helpful / instructive to me as a listener of "trad" jazz. or i guess i'm trying to say that i've had multiple versions of that epiphany, and this is just another dimension of that.