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

sleeve: thanks for your diligence. it's sure to be useful at almost every point (i'll do my best, too). and yeah, pointing out discrepancies as they come up between release / recording date -- that's what i had in mind. otherwise i'd just feel incapacitated. we'll sort it all out as we go.

rushomancy: we'll definitely cover the doo wop stuff. re: listening, since KM is doing spotify, i'm trying to post youtube links as we go along. there's also the (official, more or less) sun ra bandcamp: https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/ (and that material is also available on itunes)

So this thread could potentially go on forever, right?

yeah.

hopefully!

interlude, 1948-1954

most of this information and ALL of the quoted text comes from this article, which i HIGHLY recommend for its exhaustive coverage of sun ra's chicago period through 1961: From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra: The Chicago Years

1. the "deep purple" duet with stuff smith, recorded in 1948 and first made available in 1973 on saturn 485

http://campber.people.clemson.edu/saturn485act.jpg
listen on youtube

On his very first tape machine, Sonny recorded Stuff Smith and himself playing in his tiny apartment at 5414 South Prairie Avenue. They performed a duet featuring the Solovox, a primitive electronic instrument that Sonny had picked up back in 1941, while still in Birmingham. Sonny had a thing about purple (he thought people would be healthier if they ate more purple food). He released Deep Purple nearly a quarter century later on his Saturn label, and the tune remained in his repertoire for the rest of his career. It would be featured on his very last recording session, when he accompanied Billy Bang for Soul Note in 1992.

2. solo church organ recording, 1948

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPO7oY8riXc

3. piano accompaniment for the dozier boys

http://campber.people.clemson.edu/aristocrat3002a.jpg
listen on youtube

In October 1948, Sonny became the music director of a successful medium-sized band. Bassist Gene Wright, at the tender of age of 23, was simultaneously running a big band and a 10 or 11 piece aggregration called the Dukes of Swing (two previous incarnations of the Dukes had been in operation in 1943 and 1946). For a while, the big band was upstairs in the Pershing Ballroom while the Dukes held the gig at the Beige Room (as the basement club in the Pershing Hotel was then known). During most of the engagement, the Dukes worked with a vocal-instrumental quartet called the Dozier Boys. Sonny composed or arranged the Dukes' entire book. Many of these pieces were of a strictly functional nature (floor shows again) but their theme number was a suite based on the theme from Spellbound, an ambitious work by composer Miklos Rozsa. If only we were lucky enough to have that on record....

The engagement with the Dukes did bring Sonny some recording work, first as session pianist for the Dozier Boys, then with the entire band. Both sesssions were done for the fledgling Aristocrat label. It was the Doziers who came to the company's attention first, courtesy of bassist and songwriter Willie Dixon.

4. various solo, duet, and trio recordings made at home w/ the ampex. many featuring the nu-sounds of the solovox. most of these recordings are available on the norton and transparency labels (see article linked at beginning of post for specifics). some of these recordings document SR's first compositions, performed by his proto-arkestra small combo.

In 1950 or 1951, he started a band to play his own, frankly far-out music. He called it the Space Trio: one charter member was Laurdine "Pat" Patrick (1929 - 1991), who played alto and baritone sax. The drum chair was occupied on some occasions by Tommy Hunter. On other occasions it was taken by Robert Barry, who would soon emerge as a leading bebop drummer in town.

5. arrangements and accompaniment for the red saunders orchestra, 1948-1953 (see szwed quote upthread). red saunders backed joe williams (see scott's post above), lavern baker, jo jo adams, and dorothy donegan.

http://campber.people.clemson.edu/bluelake101a.jpg

1953 was the year of the arrangements. Sunny was making no commercial recordings of his own, and probably didn't feel that his experimental ensemble was ready to make them. But he was willing now to put his stamp on arrangements written for others, to a degree not previously heard. His name did not appear on a single record label in 1953—in one case the band's didn't either—but Red Saunders was now recording his aggressively "modern" arrangements: "Voodoo Blues," "It's Raining Again," "Summertime." And the opening bars of "Call My Baby" announce, for all who care to hear, that Sun Ra has arrived.

6. six cuts with coleman hawkins, rec. 1953 and released in 1955 on savoy

https://img.discogs.com/CcbBqut9Rvf616wHhj-torO4Le4=/fit-in/592x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-7877514-1450726598-7314.jpeg.jpg

7. possible arrangement for king kolax, 1954

https://img.discogs.com/iUxyQwP098dGUe58pXDsSJLoKeQ=/fit-in/600x601/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-9243083-1477238533-6355.png.jpg
listen on youtube

There is no need for Sun Ra arrangements (or anybody's arrangements) on generic jump band-style R&B like "Right Now," "What Have You Done to Me?," or "Goodnite Blues." However, "Vivian" (presumably named after Vivian Carter of Vee-Jay) is a mysterioso Latin number with percussion breaks built right into the theme. Off the beaten path for King Kolax, but straightforward for Sun Ra at this time. Harold Ousley did not want to rule out "Vivian" as a Sun Ra arrangement either: "Kolax wrote a lot himself, but he also used a lot of other people's stuff."

OKAY! that gets us into 1954/1955, so next we'll move onto the nu sounds / cosmic rays stuff and the rest of THE SINGLES

That Red Saunders "Summertime" is Ra all over.
https://open.spotify.com/album/6olv4cjXzSpX72WATWZomA

oh man, this is a good batch of stuff! the meager musical critical sensibilities i have fall to the wayside when i hear early 1950s music. just about everything of the period sounds good to me.

i updated the playlist where i could - red saunders "summertime", "riverboat", and the red saunders orchestra's "honky tonk train blues". but spotify is missing the sun ra releases that feature a lot of his early recordings through the late 40s and early 50s - Deep Purple (or Dreams Come True) - as well as most of saunders' other recordings. and no dozier boys or king kolax, sadly.

man it all goes weird when you get to "India", huh? jazz heads back then must have not known what hit 'em

"Sun Song" gets there first imo

OK I'll give that a closer listen, thanks! I was making dinner for some of the Spotify playlist last night and I think that's one of the tracks that Karl added later

yeah, it's definitely a work in progress! and any track in the playlist beyond what budo jeru has posted here is very, very provisional.

those Red Saunders tracks are so good

wow, that version of "deep purple" with stuff smith from 1948 is so good. it has a lovely, meandering melancholy sound. stuff smith is good!

This is a great thread, I'll be here for the ride.

(also ty for spotify playlist km!)

no prob! i just hope no one skips ahead of the thread and thinks that the next songs on the playlist represent the correct order! i'm just kinda searching for songs that I think will be upcoming and adding them in the generally correct area of the playlist, but as the thread progresses I'll keep adjusting things to match it.

the solo church recording from 1948 youtube posted above is really good, too. in the midst of these more traditional sessions with other musicians, it shows that he was already interested in going on cosmic voyages in his own work

more youtube links:

Andy Tibbs Dozier Boys with Sax Malllard's Combo + Sun Ra on piano, recorded nov 1948, released dec 1948: In a Traveling Mood (just the first song)
Andy Tibbs & the Dozier Boys + Sun Ra on piano, recorded nov 1948, released jan 1949: In Every Man's Life

Dozier Boys with Eugene Wright + Sun Ra on piano and arrangements, recorded dec 1948, released Sept 1949: Music Goes Round and Round
(couldn't find "Pork n Beans" or "Dawn Mist", from the same session)

after some searching, i found the 6 tracks that Sun Ra/ Blount played on The Hawk Returns (search for "Sun31" here on the amazingly exhaustive Chicago Years link posted above: . They were included on the Confessin': The Astounding Coleman Hawkins comp, which is on Spotify.

Sun Ra studies should be a standard department at universities

Not to be too much of a party pooper, but is the idea of the thread to listen to all the stuff that's been posted so far and then discuss at some point? Or are we going to go song by song like the Billy Joel thread?

(looking forward to 1965 -- "cosmic chaos" is my jam)

xpost
not sure! personally i'd rather go release by release since there are around 125 LPs to go through, not even counting other releases.

i'm not trying to be dismissive but i guess i just don't understand your question. my idea was to post stuff and then anybody is welcome to discuss it, right? or other people can post things, too, that's fine. and also discuss them. maybe once we get to the albums it will be more straightforward. since i feel like we could manage to do a record / day, plus maybe links to archival / live / home recordings from the same period.

oh do you mean like are we going to break down the albums track-by-track? no i'm with KM, i don't want to do that. too much stuff to get through.

xpost @ moodles

all of that sounds good to me

Yep, thanks

(1978 is another banner year. lanquidity!)

i'm pretty sure that these sun ra arrangements of "call my baby" and "rebecca" by jo jo adams (rec. 1952, backed by red saunders) are the same versions as the ones available on spotify.

The pieces may both be midtempo blues in the same key, but the band is clearly reading from charts. The arrangements definitely are by Sun Ra; especially on "Call My Baby," they keep threatening to turn into early Arkestra numbers, then veer temporarily back to the usual formulae. The arrangements are not just remarkable in their own right; they show Sun Ra's "far out" style emerging from its chrysalis. Our thanks to the late Otto Flückiger for careful listening to these sides.

(campbell et al.)

sorry, 1952

errrr 1953 ****

also yeah "lanquidity" rules!

wow there are 1953 sessions with Coleman Hawkins! I'm diving into that crazy "Sonny Blount To Sun Ra" link now

Maybe a couple of days per album...

not a chance! buckle up, pal!

got the jo jo adams, thanks!

and yeah, i'm enjoying the coleman hawkins stuff a lot too. i think the only stuff i've heard with him as a leader is Night Hawk, so it's really cool to get another view of his sound from earlier in the 50s. Blount on the keys is a nice bonus!

also it looks like this comp is the way to go if you want to hear the space trio + other early home recordings. so if any of you heads want to dig into it and then report back, that'd be cool. there's also a discogs review (posted, apparently, by the same person who made a number of the 78rpm youtube videos we've linked to) purporting that the compiler was too speculative re: whether SR is actually the sideman, so it looks like the mystery only deepens the deeper you dig:

https://img.discogs.com/XiHykR2372o7dKLxXBqg5Mu-WjY=/fit-in/312x498/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3282915-1403207320-7971.jpeg.jpg

14 x CD !!!

it's been linked to a few times upthread, but esp. while we're still in this era this is such a great resource: http://campber.people.clemson.edu/sunra.html

just wanted to make sure no one misses it because it's one of those links that you can easily spend an entire evening reading through

highly recommended reading

that entire website is great. the sun ra page is just one of many exhaustive biographies/discographies of musicians of the era. all put together by robert campbell, psychology professor at clemson university. thanks robert campbell!

https://i.imgur.com/lwwa6lT.jpg

btw for those without spotify, there's a lot of stuff on bandcamp. here's a recent A Guide to the Many Sun Ra Albums Now Available on Bandcamp

https://i.imgur.com/qd4Mpp0.jpg

church organ recordings are amazing.

may I suggest we spend approx. 1 week listening/posting/talking per calendar year, with this first week devoted to pre-Sun Song recordings i.e everything before 1956?

I like "Dig This Boogie". His piano already had an aggressive overabundance, like it was trying to stretch beyond the boundaries of the blues.

sleeve: the more i think about, the more i think it would be less stressful to organize this thread by year. i had a sort of release-focused approach in mind, but just coming to the thread and saying "okay, 1957 this week. here's this stuff i know is from this year. what else do we know is out there? and how do we feel about it?" -- that's both less stressful for me and also encourages more thread participation i think.

and then in terms of how much time we allot for discussion, probably somewhere between 3-5 days seems right to me (WilliamC, i was only joking, sorry if that didn't come across!)

but of course that's going to depend on how much stuff there is to listen to, and also of course i'd like to give people the opportunity to listen, formulate thoughts, express them, link to articles even, or point out live / archival material from the same year that was missed, etc. so maybe a week is better. i'm honestly not sure.

how does everybody else feel? i've been off from work for a week, so my sense of free time might be skewed.

i'd guess that everyone is going to prefer a different timeline. personally i prefer a brisker pace, so i'm going ahead into the 60s because i've already listened to all the 1950s material that i can get my hand on, several times over. but i'll still look forward to circling back and taking a deeper dive into each year as the thread progresses!

and actually, maybe a more useful suggestion is to just be flexible. i'm guessing that some years of sun ra's life will be more filled with music and other ephemera to absorb than others, so there's nothing wrong with adjusting the rollout accordingly!

okay. for sleeve i'll wait until monday to post about "jazz by sun ra" and the rest of '56. after that i'll post every few days and adjust according to what's going on in the thread and how much material there is to cover.

right now i'm reading szwed, the campbell discography, and the essays in the '96 2xCD singles comp (came across a copy by chance last night in a record store). '55 coming tonight.

that Singles comp is so essential. can anyone tell me about Vol. 2?

i think that art yard broke the vinyl release into two volumes, each three discs.

other than that it looks like the 2016 art yard 3xCD release covers 1952-1991 (while the evidence 1996 2xCD only does 1955-1982). since there were no singles recorded before 1955, it looks like art yard included home recordings in addition to newly-discovered releases + intended releases that never made it, most of which were made available on this atavistic comp from 2003

there are also the norton compilations, which break the singles material up into discs that seem to be more about a "theme" or something:

https://www.discogs.com/Sun-Ra-And-His-Arkestra-Interplanetary-Melodies/release/2166326
https://www.discogs.com/Sun-Ra-And-His-Arkestra-Rocket-Ship-Rock/release/2206168
https://www.discogs.com/Sun-Ra-And-His-Arkestra-The-Second-Stop-Is-Jupiter/release/2195244

actually it looks like the atavistic comp is rehearsals, not shelved releases. but i think that "demo" is sometimes used as a synonym on some of these singles releases. and since SR was recording basically everything at the time, and clearly intended to self-release his music, it's unclear to me whether the recorded material was intended more as a reference for the musicians than as something to shop around to labels or whatever else.

szwed on ra's recording habits (p. 73):

When he heard about a new kind of tape recorder, once which recorded on paper-backed tape for a half hour at a stretch, he bought one, an Ampex. He began recording everything he could, rehearsals, performances, even the Calumet City gigs. In fact, he sometimes played all twelve hours of the strip show without a break so that he could play and record every piece they did. His habit of documenting all his work became legendary among musicians in Chicago. Those who played with him later said that "if you worked for him for three years, you could say that you made 700 records."

one**

damn Gilmore doing a straight Coltrane channeling vibe on the first track

this sure sounds like a bass on 'My Favorite Things' but I guess it's a keyboard?

on track 2 now and wow this record rules, this keyboard bass thing going on is WILD

ok wow

the skeletal ensemble prompted him to do something he
didn’t often do: record overdubs on additional tracks. According to
Gualberto, Sonny found “a small cheap keyboard” in the studio, a
Crumar Mainman, and used it to program overdubbed bass lines
and other effects while the rest of the group provided additional
percussion and drums (Campbell and Trent 2000, 245). This gives
many of the loosely constructed tracks an impossible, otherworld-
ly quality that is truly unique. Nothing else Ra ever did (before or
since) sounds quite like this.

(Sun Ra Sundays)

thread delivers! lol, I can't believe I am still discovering awesome new Ra records at this stage

doesn't seem to be much info about the Crumar Mainman and some of the search results lead back to that blurb ... i wonder if they meant a Crumar Multiman?

dang, "moon people." this is what i'm talking about

"rome at twilight" another favorite

Wish I remembered where I put my copy of Campbell and Trent

what's next?

https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/other-voices-other-blues

Recorded in Rome, Italy, January 1978, featuring the quartet of Sun Ra (keyboards); Michael Ray (trumpet); John Gilmore (tenor sax); and Luqman Ali (drums). No bassist. The tracks were issued on a double LP in '78.

According to notes in The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra (by Robert L. Campbell and Christopher Trent), "Sun Ra frequently used his Crumar keyboard to program repeated lines and 'drum' sequences throughout the January 1978 sessions in Italy." These sessions also produced a companion double album, "New Steps," with the identical personnel.

https://i.discogs.com/PgXPnKl0FijGYuOkcri_VKoQ77xg0p8Wj4qHSW9cY04/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI0MTM3/OTQtMTQxNDA4MzE4/OC01Njk1LmpwZWc.jpeg

another release originally on the Italian Horus label, this one I have heard and it gets way more wild than the other one

Just getting to New Steps. In 1978 Sun Ra was aware of the shadow of John Coltrane on this song and they do a nice arrangement, all their own. “Moon People” is not much but a lot of duck sounds but “Sun Steps” is lovely.

The album starts to sound like Sun Ra’s odd take on repertory with “Exactly Like You”, which is like a contrefact on “Take the A Train”. “Friend and Friendship” is nice too. Wonder if these were written for the session or improvised.

“Rome at Twilight” is funky and a lot of fun. Love the vocals on “When There is No Sun”. “The Horo” closes it out with a melancholic mood. Love Michael Ray’s Clark Terry impression about 12 minutes in.

April 1978 - Of Mythic Worlds session

https://www.discogs.com/release/1204203-Sun-Ra-Of-Mythic-Worlds
https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/of-mythic-worlds

By studying the performances on side A, eventually Campbell was able to identify the personnel. By tracking these musicians' tenures with the Arkestra and comparing personnel to known tour stops, it was determined that these three tracks — "Mayan Temples," "Over the Rainbow," and "Inside the Blues" — were probably recorded in April 1978 at The Left Bank Jazz Society in Baltimore. Portions of this concert were included in the 1980 Robert Mugge film "A Joyful Noise," which helped to identify personnel.

We covered the B-side of this already, it was recorded in 1972 for the Pathways To Unknown Worlds session.

from the Bandcamp reissue notes:
Hence, [those] two tracks have been omitted from this digital reissue; they were reassigned to the 2019 Modern Harmonic label's definitive reissue of Pathways to Unknown Worlds (available in all formats).

In place of [those] two tracks, we have included two previously unreleased medleys performed by the Sun Ra Quartet at the Moers Music Festival, West Germany, in 1979. The recording quality is excellent (these originated from a radio broadcast), the performances are relatively close in the Ra chronology, and the repertoire is compatible with the three OMW live tracks.

https://i.discogs.com/kml4urISP_uCea9uuPJ29WbS4r1VxMgf7l2sFzruFtE/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEyMDQy/MDMtMTMyNzE3MDAz/NS5qcGVn.jpeg

another tidbit from BC:

first issued on LP in 1980 on the short-lived Philly Jazz label (PJ 1007), owned by Tom Buchler. The only other Sun Ra release on PJ was the widely acclaimed Lanquidity (1978).

oops backing up to January 1978 for the live Italian releases (Media Dreams, Disco 3000, The Sound Mirror)

MEDIA DREAMS is something of a companion to DISCO 3000, with the distinction that the recording location of the latter is known (Milan's Teatro Ciak), but the location of the former is not. DISCO 3000 is also the better-recorded tape, but MEDIA DREAMS won't disappoint Ra fans who know better than to expect Rudy Van Gelder-perfection from the Saturn catalog.

https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/media-dreams-expanded

a particularly exhausting discographical mess between these LPs, here's the details:

The original 1978 Saturn LP of MEDIA DREAMS featured six works—on Side A, "Saturn Research," "Constellation," and "Yera [sic] of the Sun"; on Side B, "Media Dreams," "Twigs at Twilight," and "An Unbeknowneth Love." Almost 30 years later, additional concert tapes surfaced, which provided the British label Art Yard with enough material for a 13-track 2-CD set, issued in 2008. When Art Yard's license expired after 2020, the rights reverted to Sun Ra LLC, and this digital release is the current iteration of the set. There are minor differences.

The later tape discoveries revealed that the Saturn track "Twigs at Twilight," featuring torching tenor work from John Gilmore, was in fact an excerpt of Ra's evergreen "Images" (a work which dated from his late 1950s Chicago period). For this 2022 digital reissue, "Twigs" (which was included on the Art Yard CD) is replaced by the complete "Images." "An Unbeknowneth Love" was abridged on the Saturn LP; this abridged version as well as the later-discovered full version were both included on the Art Yard CD. We have included just the full version. "Of Other Tomorrows Never Known" originally appeared on the Saturn LP SOUND MIRROR; Art Yard added it to their 2-CD set, and we followed suit. Finally, "Space is the Place" and a brief opening passage of "The Shadow World" were listed as two tracks on the Art Yard CD, but they were performed inseparably and are here listed as a medley.

Having conquered Italy, less than a week after this frenetic intercontinental expedition, Ra was back performing in the U.S.

the original Saturn LPs feature an especially varied batch of handmade covers, see here:
https://www.discogs.com/master/143594-Sun-Ra-And-His-Arkestra-Media-Dreams

https://i.discogs.com/MsllQJEk2a7ElcIxTWWpnUzxjISYdQpSAVB_Ly1OkbE/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:596/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI4NjIx/MTAtMTY0NzUyMDQ1/MC00ODYxLmpwZWc.jpeg