Search & Destroy: Sun Ra

Brian Eno ‏@dark_shark 59m59 minutes ago
Sun Ra: Live at Stache’s, Columbus, Ohio, January 5, 1985 #mp3 #Arkestra #MarshallAllen http://tinyurl.com/hf75yyf

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CnH8QG8UEAAn581.jpg:large

Destroy - "It's After the End of the World". I just picked this up for twenty bucks and it's a total rip-off. There's no line-up listed, so I have no way of knowing which tracks Alan Silva is supposedly on. I can't even hear Sun Ra on the first fifteen minutes. The first set has a very generic BYG feel, it could be Don Cherry or Archie Shepp or even the Art Ensemble. The second set has a startling five minute synth solo that sounds like Ra is playing a white noise generator but that's about all there is to recommend it.

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, April 24, 2003 10:37 PM (13 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this is actually the single disc version of the set taht somebody was asking about at the beginning of the thread and somebody else said was Nuits de Fondation Maecht. I have the Double disc version known as Black Myth/Out in Space.
I haven't listened to it in a while and think it was pretty difficult listening in places but o9ver all pretty good.

My friend John just sent this research update from Brussels (he liked the xpost Marshall Allen-selected In the Orbit of Ra better than the Art Yard anthologies he mentions, but thought they were all somewhat lacking in range)(I especially wanna check that 2-CD version of Disco 3000):

As an antidote or counterbalance to the tastefully selected, beautifully remastered, but arguably overly genteel anthologies on Art Yard, today I went to the OTHER library and borrowed The Solar-Myth Approach vol. 1 & 2, which I'd never heard before, and which to my ears is kind of a continuation of the Heliocentric Worlds material while not quite reaching the degree of outness of Nuits De La Fondation Maeght vols. 1 & 2.
For the more "advanced material" reissued by Art Yard, there's the 2-CD reissue of Disco 3000, with the entire Milan concert, and Media Dreams with the same lineup minus June Tyson, which was also recorded on the same trip to Italy. Both of these are worth hearing because of the creativity & ingenuity they all demonstrate in the stripped-down quartet format -- e.g. no drummer on the trip so percussion duties are split between John Gilmore on drums and Sun Ra operating a drum machine.

One heavy-duty reissue, also on Art Yard, is the 2-CD version of The Paris Tapes: Live at le Theatre du Chatelet 1971, where the Arkestra comprises 22 people not including the dancers.

I give Art Yard a lot of credit for making it a point to re-release that whole late-70s series like Landquidity, On Jupiter, and especially Sleeping Beauty.

Among the recordings of previously unreleased material that have come out in the last decade, don't overlook the ones on the Transparency label which, contrary to their name, offer next to ZERO information/documentation (at least on the couple that I own).

This page offers a useful overview:
The Sun Ra Arkestra https://www.discogs.com/artist/2219395-The-Sun-Ra-Arkestra?sort=year%2Casc&limit=250&page=1

I love the Media Dreams and Disco 3000 reissues, good stuff

Modern Harmonic to Release Sun Ra's Live Triple LP/Double CD

‘At the Inter-Media Arts’, New York 1991

Triple Slabs of Interplanetary Perfection Available in Limited Pressing on

Record Store Day’s Black Friday, November 25th

Previously Unreleased, From His Archives

A stunning live Sun Ra event, recorded at the Inter-Media Arts Center in New York, April 20, 1991 will be available on Record Store Day's Black Friday event on November 25th. This concert was just two years before Ra’s “earthly departure” – and his keyboard work was amazingly strident and vibrant here. Modern Harmonic presents the tracks for the first time, they are previously unreleased! The Arkestra was in perfect form; this special night also showcased the Arkestra’s vocal magnificence with selections and sections powerfully performed by June Tyson, Michael Ray, T.C. Carney, James Jacson, and John Gilmore. Rarely will you hear the Arkestra with such clarity! Many Sun Ra releases were derived from live performances, but seldom did they have the quality or sonic-punch of this recording. The venerable NYC radio station WNYC were present to record, perfectly capturing the stellar performances.

Check out some music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLKoSyqmgc8

Modern Harmonic is celebrating this magical evening by releasing the complete performance across three premium RTI LP pressings – or on two compact discs – with both configurations packaged in stunning, tri-fold chipboard jackets. The limited edition release also features extensive liners by noted jazz writer Howard Mandel, and is wrapped in a gorgeous design by legendary album-art icon, Jim Flora.

Triple LP pressed on HQ RTI vinyl and double CD, both with extensive liners.

The body and the spirit are not always one. While Herman “Sonny” Blount’s body was born on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, his spirit originated on Saturn a few years later. Around the age of twenty-two, Blount had a transformative experience during a deep religious meditation: “My whole body changed into something else. And I went up... I wasn't in human form. I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn. They teleported me and I was down on stage with them. I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me.” Blount emerged from this encounter determined to fulfill their prophecy. Rechristening himself Le Sony'r Ra, he began a decades-long quest to write and play ever-more adventurous music. Blending elements of bebop, modal jazz, free improvisation, and unclassifiable, otherworldly sounds, Sun Ra built one of the most challenging and innovative recorded catalogs in music history.

Modern Harmonic Records: www.modernharmonic.com

nice

S: Other Voices of There, Strange Strings, Heliocentric, The Magic City, Space Is The Place, and go see the currently touring version of The Arkestra (it's a lot of fun)

D: nah

do u mean "Other Planes Of There"? that one's in my "to listen" pile!

re-watched a Joyful Noise, required some spiritual succor

er rewatched it last night because I required some spiritual succor

Missed the Arkestra the other night in DC, but Instagram videos from it looked good. 92-year-old Marshall Allen still at it on sax.

re the new singles collection:
https://daily.bandcamp.com/2016/11/21/sun-ra-feature/

Clips w that article are pretty sweet

There's so much understated genius in this. I don't care what anybody says. (Not that I've ever run across anyone saying anything negative about it, but just in case.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS5u5TU00vM

"out there a minute" was one of the first ra records i heard; an uncle had a copy of the LP (missing "next stop mars" from the CD). it's still one of the ra records i go back to; the stuff on it is among my favorite of his new york stuff (i don't listen to the heliocentric worlds/magic city/atlantis stuff hardly at all).

Out There a Minute was the first Sun Ra album I ever bought and it remains my favorite. (I had heard a fair amount on the radio and seen Sun Ra live at least a few times by the time I bought it.)

https://twitter.com/franckbiyong1/status/816911233400053760

just one thing I would like to see on 1/20

just picked up this book from the library -- pretty solid so far
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1G-Zp5VIAEyr2f.jpg:large

tyler have u read Space Is The Place? it is very very good imo

I have not seen or read that one you posted, looks interesting

yeah, the Szwed book? It is really good ...
this one is pretty brand new, i believe. less a biography and more of a dig into Sun Ra's influences / influence, it seems.

ooh that sounds like just what I need. Swed's book is excellent. I should probably revisit it sometime.

i listened to "the eternal myth revisited" set a couple years back. less a cd set and more a really long radio show type thing. it's really excellent.

I dip into Szwed's book at random fairly often, it's so rich

some notes made while listening to the aforementioned new singles set---started these comments on What Are You Listening To; here's more after listening more:

Sun Ra's Singles---The Definitive 45s Collection 1952-1991: 63 tracks, a lot more than the one on the Evidence label (this is on Strut), and from the original masters, while at least some of the Evidence collection was from the low-budget 7" vinyls. Sounds great, and while the guest singers (who gradually disappear, as Ra and the Arkestra speak and sing up, occasionally but very assertively), are uneven, they all shine sometimes. My favorite is Yochanan, AKA The Space Age Vocalist and The Man From The Sun, who belts 50s novelty free r&b numbers "M uck M uck (Matt Matt)" and Skillet Mama" and also delivers the word from further afield.

The two opening songpoems by Mr. Ra are instant grabbers.”I Am An Instrument” is very sweet and humble, waiting for the player; “I Am Strange” begins in the midst of a man’s amazed and somewhat apprehensive self-awareness, his vibrations, then moves through the window to the wind’s imploring, perhaps lamenting regard of the man, whom the wind cannot approach too closely; can only wait and call for the man’s contact, must submit to this desire, for windy powers are too great for initiative (this seems like the genesis of My Brother The Wind). More songs than the previous singles collection on the Evidence label.

The rock 'n' roll/r&b appeal of some vocals and more instrumentals, (including the original Sun Ra single versions of “Rocket No. 9” and “Love On Outer Space”, both of which are covered on NRBQ’s 2016 monster box High Noon, and reminding us that Q-pilot Terry Adams long ago declared that his band was the child of Sun Ra and Sun Records) can also come across kinda Latinoid, in a way that could attract the soul jazz club-goers, Chicago electric bluesters---all of it fitting into what some older customers of my Deep South music store in the 90s meant by "blues", sometimes. And, early on, some straight-up swing---nice, sometimes a little neat for my taste--and some tentacles extended, but soon assimilated, though not forgotten---this is Disc I, on II things def get out, though "The Bridge", which is cosmic and must be walked after "fire is poured on dry leaves" and one way left to go, is immediately followed by "I'm Gonna Unmask Batman" and it keeps zig-zagging like that. And the catchier pop-blues-jazz approaches stuff can pull in darker rays, like on "Nuclear War": "Radiation breeds mutation" (group singers repeat), "And when they push that button, you can kiss yo' ass bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye." ("Bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye.")
After all several appearances by a frequently angry angel, the aforementioned sweet and humble “I Am An Instrument” returns, now pointing out that man is an instrument too, waiting for the plucking of his heart strings: “The heart can speak more than the mind” (thus providing a reminder of the mind passing the conductor’s bation, as demonstrated recently on “On Jupiter/Cosmo Drama (Prophetika 1)” by the angel, who may be fate and certainly sounds in a pleasant mood, on this occasion, with good news:”Something is, but nothing is too”,and while positives include “The life you liiive, and the thoughts you think, and the death you die”, negatives include immortality, because that’s impossible---”Election Day is coming, which one will you vote for? If you care to reach for thee impossible, that’s my department.”)

i'm still really familiar with the old singles collection, which is just some great, classic ra. i do like some of the tracks that showed up on the '09 "rocket ship rock" compilation - ebah's version of "i am gonna unmask the batman" (surely one of the all-time sun ra classics) and the utterly demented "space stroll" by don (dino) dean.

Dang, Don (Dino) Dean's not on here! Another reminder that I need to check out Rocket Ship Rock and other stray comps. Also, turns out I was right the first time: The CD version of Singles---The Complete 45s is indeed three discs; anyway here's https://sunrastrut.bandcamp.com/album/singles

Also, speaking of guest/client vocalists, here's another one from my notes:
Hattye Randolph presents Sun Ra & His Astro-Infinity Arkestra with a seemingly unlikely gift, “Back In Your Own Backyard”, and they return the favor, simultaneously: this little blue mirrorverse is singing after supper, totally at home, knowing we travel even sitting back, and everywhere is outer space, also vice versa, like/in music maybe especially.

Verified Purchaser and Top 100 Reviewer Stuart Jefferson mentions these on Amazon:
There's also single CDs like the two volume set "Doo-Wop From Saturn and Beyond", with titles "Interplanetary Melodies" and "The Second Stop Is Jupiter". These sets contain largely unissued tracks but are still full of that Ra magic. There's also "Rocket Ship Rock" (more issued/unissued sides), and "Spaceship Lullaby" (vocal groups), both which are worth hearing for Ra fans.

I've been listening to Monorails and Satellites, Vol. 2 for the first time. Nothing to say but wow, for now. I've been neglecting to keep up with what's become available on Spotify, now that apparently some issues with who has the rights to what have been thrashed out.

definitely picking up "discipline 27-ii" for RSD but what about "janus"?

it got one vote up and one vote down on this thread

i'm fascinated by the idea that bugs hunter was a big part of the janus sessions ... always loved his tape experiments on "cosmic tones" and the track below too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U6AHT5xfzo

that Discipline 27-II reissue looks great, too bad I probably won't be able to get my hands on it

I'm lukewarm on Janus, seemed like a patchwork reissue with different sessions mixed up iirc

i picked up both and i'm happy i did!

right now very much enjoying the sun ra and merzbow cd

Bunch of great liner notes/things I haven't heard here: https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/

yeah I just got turned on to that Bandcamp stuff via this

https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/10/13/sun-ra-album-guide/

I know how I'm spending my weekend

this year i choose to listen to all sun ra, chronologically.

really been digging The Nubians of Plutonia recently.

i'm only 21 albums away from it!

that journey covers a lot of astronomical units!

is that including "the eternal myth, revealed"?

one year i decided i was going to listen to all of duke ellington's recordings chronologically. i think i got up to 1932?

is that including "the eternal myth, revealed"?

not at the moment, i don't think! i'm starting off with this as my guide: https://www.discogs.com/artist/2219395-The-Sun-Ra-Arkestra?sort=year%2Casc&limit=250&page=1

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.

http://campber.people.clemson.edu/earthlies.jpg

has anyone ever owned or even SEEN a copy of hartmut geerken's discography?

you mean the book titles “sun ra omniverse”? or something else?

"omniverse" yeah, that's the one. looks like it was reprinted in 2015, but probably it was also revised / updated?

i can't find much about it except for a long and glowing review of the 1994 ed. on amazon.

geerken's own website doesn't help much, although it looks like the guy has written a LOT about SR (and in a number of languages).

http://www.hartmutgeerken.com/26.html

nevermind, this is the info i was looking for. among many other things, it includes a revised discography co-authored by christopher trent (who did "earthly recordings"). also the photographs look amazing.

http://artyardrecords.co.uk/omniverse-sun-ra/

from the art yard website:

The new, completely revised edition features:

Unpublished photographs of Sun Ra and the Arkestra by Hartmut Geerken and Val Wilmer.

Fully revised discography by Chris Trent, co-author of The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra.

Articles by Geerken, Amiri Baraka, Chris Cutler, Robert L. Campbell, Salah Ragab, Gabi Geist and others.

New full colour images of hundreds of Sun Ra album covers, posters, handbills and ephemera, including reproductions of rare hand drawn and coloured LP sleeves.

I have the 2015 Art Yard edition. Worth it for the photos alone, nicely printed, and the discography is great to have.

that looks amazing. $72 via forced exposure