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

oh man, love these records, some of my favorite Ra live sets

amazing cover photo of ra at the organ !

1970 - It’s After The End Of The World (Black Myth/Out In Space)

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Moving on to the 1970 European tour proper, this was originally released as a single LP on the MPS/BASF label, with parts of the Oct. 17th and Nov. 7th shows included. It was reissued as a double CD in 1998 under the title “Black Myth/Out In Space,” including (I believe) all of both shows. This record is NOT on Bandcamp, must be a rights thing again. But, the original abridged version is on Spotify and has been added to our playlist.

The full double CD is on Youtube is you want to listen:

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

yes !!

this one is pretty rough going so far, lots of squealing

idk i thinks it’s great, lots of fun too

If you are not a reality, whose myth are you?
If you are not a myth, whose reality are you?

ok yeah I take it back, was listening to "Black Myth" at the time of that post

is this the first one to feature Alan Silva's insane string playing so prominently? Admittedly I have not absorbed the Maeght gigs in full yet either.

the two Maeght albums were the first Ra I heard. there's still too much I haven't heard but I still end up going back to them, every listen is like the first listen -- every time you think you've adjusted to the scope of this band or their intensity, they tear themselves open a little further, and then, out of nowhere, the electronics

still the ones I recommend to people asking for a good first impression because if nothing else they give you THE FULL RANGE

1971 - Universe In Blue

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3180346819_10.jpg

OK, I was wrong about 1970, things are still confusing and I thought there were more recordings in that year than we ended up covering. Moving on, we have another live recording - it looks like it’s gonna be a while before we hear a studio date again.

The 2014 Bandcamp/Spotify version of this is definitive, with newly discovered stereo versions and unreleased material:

Universe in Blue is a rarity. This collection of undated live club performances was issued in small-run pressings with two different LP covers on Sun Ra's Saturn label around 1972, but has largely escaped further notice. It's never been reissued on LP, CD or (prior to this edition) digitally.

There are also newer Scorpio pressings of the original LP, I have one. Sun Ra Sundays covers the album as well:

Released as Saturn ESR 5000 IGB in 1972 (in mono), Universe in Blue was recorded live somewhere on the west coast presumably around August, 1971. However, the greatly reduced Arkestra suggests that it could have been recorded “somewhere on the road” in mid-1972, as they straggled across the country on their way back to Philadelphia for good (see Campbell & Trent pp.172-173). To further confuse the matter, “The Good Doctor” at ESP-disk’ provides a firm date of August 17, 1971 but insists the venue is Slug’s Saloon in New York City (see below). Who knows? In any event, behind the striking, psychedelicized album cover awaits a tasty selection of smoky, blues-based compositions, dominated by Ra’s patented “space-age barbeque” organ.

Although not excerpted above, that blog entry also covers the initial appearance of the stereo takes and unreleased tracks (first heard in a 2008 radio show).

These recordings (unreleased track excepted) sound very much of a piece with the A-side of My Brother The Wind Vol. 2 to my ears, a soft and smoky late-night vibe.

cosmic strip club vibes for sure

loving this 12 minute wolf eyes cameo

1971 - The Paris Tapes: Live At Le Théâtre Du Châtelet

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Recorded in November 1971 at the start of the second European tour, but not issued until 2010 as a definitive double CD - not on Bandcamp, but it is on Spotify and has been added to the playlist.

I keep being reminded of the classic ILM thread “Do I Have Too Many Acid Mothers Temple Albums?” except here it’s “Do I have too many live versions of Discipline 27?” The real surprise in this set to me is a version of “Angels And Demons At Play” that pops up on the 2nd disc.

laser beams right out the gate ! an auspicious beginning.

probably my favorite discovery since your tenure as spaceship pilot, sleeve. i thank you for bringing this to my attention.

yeah this one is sounding good. a 22-minute "Watusi"! also note the early (first existing?) version of "Space Is The Place"

oh FFS I just screwed up the playlist order. Karl can you revert it somehow?

it's now sorted by "Date Added" instead of our meticulous curating

I was trying to make the damn album title field wider and sorted by album name instead :(

uh oh!

hmm...it still looks correct on my Spotify! Starts with I Am Strange and I Am and Instrument, ends with Untitled Synthesizer Solo from the Paris Tapes

oh good! anyone else, let us know if there are issues

god, the end of discipline 27 here reminds me so much of "brakhage" by stereolab

not sure whether or not it's a coincidence

this concert is a jam, is this the pre-mitotic d27?

Keeping in mind that it's not the only time they have borrowed from Mr. Blount, it is really too close to be a coincidence.

1971 - Calling Planet Earth (Copenhagen 12/5/71)

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An obscurity that wasn’t released until 1998 as part of a 3CD set (covered upthread as this set is one of the only ways you can get/hear Outer Spaceways Inc and Spaceways), and also as an individual CD and 2015 LP.

This is the first one in a significant run of albums that are NOT on Spotify or Bandcamp, and not even really on Youtube from what I can find. Here’s the one track that was available:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aBETuLd92M

That’s all I got this time around, I’ll be back tomorrow with more unavailable recordings!

1971 - The Egypt recordings (December 12th, 16th, and 17th of 1971): Dark Myth Equation Visitation a.k.a Nature’s God LP, Nidhamu LP, and Horizon LP

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Legendary Cairo recordings made at Hartmut Geerken’s house, from a TV broadcast, and from two nights at the Ballon Theater. Specific details are in the liner notes of the DIscogs listings. The Szwed book goes into some detail which I will excerpt here:

“When they finished the Copenhagen concert on December 5 they decided at the last minute to go to Egypt instead of straight back to New York. Sun Ra sold some concert tape to Black Lion records (see upthread for the tortured history of these tapes, which are still missing) and they left on December 7, not knowing anyone in Egypt and not sure of where they would stay or how they would pay for it. […] With the help of Hartmut Geerken, a writer and free musician who was teaching at the Goethe Institute in Cairo, the Arkestra cobbled together a kind of local mini-tour. […] They intended to stay only a few days, but as usual it turned into two weeks […].”

In the end, band members had to sell their personal items to get the tickets back home.

Originally released as three albums on Saturn during 1972-73 and sporadically repressed through the 70s with a variety of increasingly-sketchy handmade covers. View the Discogs master releases on the 1st pressing links below to see all variants. My favorites are included above. These were mysterious rare artifacts until the CD reissues a decade ago, some pressings had no liner notes at all and some (iirc) miscredited the location of the recording as Holland.

Dark Myth Equation Visitation (Live In Egypt Vol. 1)
Nidhamu (Live In Egypt Vol. II)
Horizon

It looks like Recommended did some distribution of Horizon represses (or deadstock) in the 80s (more on that when we get there), and Art Yard reissued all of these as CDs in the late 2000s:

double CD of Dark Myth and Nidhamu, minus the interview on the original Dark Myth LP
single CD of Horizon with extra material

As usual for the Art Yard reissues, there are no digital rights in the US. Correspondingly, none of these are on Spotify or Bandcamp. It looks like a massive 5LP box set is (was?) scheduled for June of 2020 Record Store Day:

https://www.roughtrade.com/us/sun-ra/cairo-1971

https://images.roughtrade.com/product/images/files/000/191/817/hero/Ev8_HJWw.jpeg?1583360137

Here are some scattered Youtube links:

“To Nature’s God” from Dark Myth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwohk4ZT4R0

“Nidhamu” from Nidhamu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dydQDMOfRQ&list=RD7dydQDMOfRQ&start_radio=1

and the entire expanded “Horizon” CD on Strut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRzB5FFaRRE

This brings us to the end of 1971, and I leave you with this astonishing 1971 video footage from Egypt and Italy originally shot by band member Tommy Hunter, courtesy of the internet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5azChH6Z7QA

and a 1971 interview from Helsinki that should have been posted with Calling All Planets yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMMWNwVhq5k

damn, that "Nidhamu" link is already broken

I listened to Horizon this morning but wasn't really feeling it

here's a different link for "Nidhamu"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dydQDMOfRQ

i want that egypt box sooooo bad

$86 is a pretty good deal for 5 LPs these days!

no kidding

1971 - France, 1/8/72 "Jazz Session"

Weekend bonus viewing, video shot in France on their way back home from Egypt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guQUde8MOyc

oops that should read 1972, my bad

an uncharacteristic evening post:

1972 - Soundtrack to “Space Is The Place”

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0645369563_10.jpg

“Space Is the Place is an 85-minute Afrofuturist[1] science fiction film made in 1972 and released in 1974.[2][3] It was directed by John Coney, written by Sun Ra and Joshua Smith, and features Sun Ra and his Arkestra. A soundtrack was released on Evidence Records.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Is_the_Place

From that wiki link:

“During the late-1960s and early-1970s, Sun Ra and his ensemble made several forays to California. In 1971, Sun Ra taught a course, "The Black Man in the Cosmos", at University of California, Berkeley.[4] Over the course of these California visits, Sun Ra came to the attention of Jim Newman, who produced the film Space Is the Place starring Sun Ra and his Arkestra, and based, in part, on Sun Ra's Berkeley lectures.”

While the song itself is probably the Arkestra’s most well-known endeavor, true heads know that the soundtrack and the studio LP of the same name are different beasts altogether. We start with the actual soundtrack to this fully zonked flick which I proudly own as a legit DVD release.

I feel like this merits a lengthy excerpt from the notes to the 2019 Bandcamp edition:

Despite being called as much in its original 1993 issue, this album is NOT the soundtrack of SPACE IS THE PLACE. This is the music that was recorded by Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Solar Arkestra FOR the film. Most of the music on this album is not heard in the film except in short excerpts, and there's music in the film which is not on this album. Hence, this is not a soundtrack album. It's a first-rate Sun Ra studio album that stands on its own, apart from the film.

The film was produced while Ra and his entourage were based in Oakland CA. The bandleader booked a recording session at an unidentified studio originally thought to be in that city. However, Jim Newman told Sun Ra discographers Robert L. Campbell and Christopher Trent that the studio was “on Connecticut Street at the foot of Potrero Hill in San Francisco." The album features a mix of reworked Ra evergreens (e.g. "We Travel the Spaceways," "Satellites Are Spinning," "Watusa," and "Love in Outer Space") as well as tracks used in the film and appearing nowhere else (e.g. "The Overseer," "Cosmic Forces," and "Mysterious Crystal").

Singer/dancer June Tyson offers sparkling lead vocals on "Outer Spaceways Inc.," "Satellites Are Spinning," and "We Travel the Spaceways," as well as impassioned declamations on "Black Man." John Gilmore, one of the greatest tenor saxophonists of his generation, largely served as drummer on these sessions. Ra provides his customary cosmic pyrotechnics on a battery of electronic keyboards.

These tracks were first issued on CD in 1993 by Evidence Records; the package was subtitled "Soundtrack to the film" and featured different cover art. That CD is long out of print, but can be purchased on the secondary market. The contents of the album were issued on LP by Sutro Park in 2010, and they created new cover art. (So did we.) Yet another CD edition was included (along with a DVD of the film) in the 40th Anniversary coffee-table book published in 2014 by Harte Recordings.

The audio for this digital release has some minor improvements over the Evidence and Harte CDs (including the reduction of 60Hz electrical hum during quiet passages), but the respective editions are largely comparable. Wherever the tracks were originally recorded, they were well-recorded. However, according to Jim Newman, the original master tapes were destroyed in a studio fire. All that remains is a quarter-inch stereo mixdown tape.

i'm liking "mysterious crystal" quite a lot

OK I guess this still isn't the "actual soundtrack" - how about "used and unused cues and incidental music for/from the film"

1972 - Astro Black

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The beginning of the “Impulse era” and the first studio recordings since 1970’s The Night Of The Purple Moon. Recorded in 1972, released on (quad) LP in 1973. This wasn’t physically reissued for 45 years! The new version has a much worse album cover which I will not link here. I was previously unfamiliar with this one, Sun Ra Sundays likes it a lot:

According to the jacket of Astro Black, Sun Ra’s first new recording for ABC/Impulse! was made at “El Saturn Studio” in Chicago on May 7, 1972, but that date is questionable since the Arkestra was just leaving California in May -- and the studio name is “strictly mythic” (Campbell & Trent p.186) Whatever the date or actual location, it was clearly made in a professional recording studio as the sound quality is exceptionally good. Sun Ra was obviously determined to take advantage of the mass exposure a major label could bring, producing one his finest albums. Notably, Ronnie Boykins makes a welcome return on bass after a long absence and he is prominently featured here, driving the band to great heights. The Arkestra is augmented with both Akh Tal Ebah and Kwami Hadi on trumpets, Charles Stephens on trombone, Alzo Wright on violin and viola, along with several conga players, who give much of this record its avant-exotica feel. But Boykins’s clearly inspires Sonny and his fluent explorations on organ and synthesizer throughout the album demonstrate a consummate mastery of electronic instruments. Astro Black is, in my opinion, one of Sun Ra’s crowning recorded achievements.

The 2018 Bandcamp edition is remastered, but has no extra material. The liners there give more detail about the Impulse deal:

After years of self-releasing albums on his own Saturn label, Sun Ra signed with ABC's Impulse jazz imprint in 1972. A reissue series of earlier hard-to-find Saturn LPs was undertaken, along with a few new projects. The first premiere, Astro Black, was recorded and released in 1973 in the now-obsolete quadraphonic format (tho it was playable on stereo phonographs). The undertaking signaled a noble campaign on the part of Impulse producer Ed Michel to mainstream Sun Ra and broaden his audience, without any sacrifice of artistic integrity.

But the effort was doomed: the label suffered commercial losses on the project and lost faith in avant-garde space funk. Within two years, after corporate reshuffling (i.e., firings and hirings), ABC's Sun Ra project was abandoned. The company clipped the corners of the cardboard sleeves and dumped the lavishly illustrated gatefold LPs in record store discount bins (or as some disgruntled fans claimed, UNDER the bins). Yet the Sisyphean venture produced some worthwhile new music.

remastered, but has no extra material

every once in a while, this is a relief to read :)

really enjoying "astro black" so far; this is the first time i've encountered this one. "hidden spheres" is particularly good, i love ronnie boykins's bass playing, reminiscent maybe of cecil mcbee from the same era. and i think i'm hearing a stray cuíca yelp towards the beginning ?

Impulse producer Ed Michel

i knew that michel had taken over for bob thiele (who went on to form flying dutchman), but i had never heard the reasons for thiele's departure. from wikipedia:

One of Thiele's last productions was the Louis Armstrong song "What A Wonderful World", which Thiele co-wrote and produced for ABC's pop division shortly before Armstrong's death. Although the musicians were apparently unaware of the drama, the recording session is reported to have been the scene of a clash between Thiele and Newton. When Newton arrived at the session he became upset when he discovered that Armstrong was recording a ballad rather than a 'Dixieland'-style number like his earlier hit "Hello Dolly". According to Thiele's own account, this led to a screaming match; Newton then had to be locked out of the studio and he stood outside throughout the session, banging on the door and yelling to be let in.

anyway, ed michel gives an account of how he signed the arkestra in "The house that Trane built: the story of Impulse Records" which i'll reproduce (partially) here:

Impulse was sensational from my point of view. Nobody involved with the operation knew anything at all about jazz. I was doing lots and lots of new recording, and lots and lots more reissues—the only time my presence was required anyplace besides the studio was during semiannual Sales Meetings. I would be advised that I’d be given perhaps half an hour to play excerpts from from upcoming new releases for the Sales and Promotion guys from the distributors.

I’d spent a bunch of time in meetings grousing about how swell it would be to do some interesting artist-signing, and pointed out, repeatedly, that Sun Ra had never had any representation on a “real” label.

[…]

Remember, this is 1972, when, in terms of radio play, “underground” press exposure, and an open-minded buying market, it seemed like anything was possible. So, after some telephone conversations and a couple of deal memos went forth from ABC to Saturn, into a meeting in Jay Lasker’s office went a fully enrobed Sun Ra and his Chicago-based business partner Alton Abraham. A standard Artist’s Contract was presented. Alton put it in his briefcase, shook hands all ‘round, and said, “We’ll look it over and get back to you,” and they were gone.

The following day, Alton was back with a retyped contract, turning everything on its head, with ABC, rather than Saturn, at the short end of the stick.

All the air puffed right out of the deal. I tried to explain the Inexplicable Behavior of These People, and pointed out that if it wasn’t possible to make a New Recording Artist Deal, perhaps it might be possible to make a Licensing Agreement for part of the Saturn catalog.

Amazingly, it worked. I still don’t know why or how. So an agreement was drawn up, under which twenty-one Saturn LPs were to be made available on Impulse, along with a sampler to be drawn from those sides.

also want to add this ed michel anecdote from the studio:

I liked to mix at the pain threshold. It was really loud. We were mixing it quadraphonically in a relatively small room. Sun Ra was sleeping deep and snoring loud. For some reason, I stopped the tape in the middle of the tune. He came awake, wheeled his head like an owl does—all around the room, checking everything out. He said, 'You Earth people sleep too much.' He put his head down and started to snore again.

1972 - Space Is The Place

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An enduring classic, most of us gathered here have probably heard this. ILX’s own stevie writes for the BBC:

“By the time Ra recorded Space Is the Place in 1972, many of his contemporaries in jazz were also exploring the very Outer Reaches he’d made his own several years earlier. But even in the era of free jazz and fusion, Ra was plotting his own path.”

Originally released in 1973 on LP. I’m not sure if this was released on Blue Thumb because the Impulse deal didn’t cover this LP, or what. Most of what comes out around now is on Impulse. Weirdly, Impulse got the reissue rights and issued it on CD in 1998.

Sun Ra Sundays has some details as well:

“Hoping to capitalize on the impending release of the movie, Space Is the Place, producer Ed Michel brought the Sun Ra and his Arkestra to Chicago’s Streeterville studios to record an eponymous album for the Blue Thumb label on October 19 & 20, 1972. In all, enough material for four albums was cut on these dates although only two were ever issued (see Campbell & Trent pp.189-192). Blue Thumb LP BTS 41 was released in 1973 and reissued on CD by Impulse! in February 1998. Why Impulse! chose to release this instead of their own (arguably superior) Astro Black remains a mystery to this day. Still, Space Is the Place is an (almost) great album, cunningly compiled to represent the panoply of Sun Ra’s music from swing to bop to free-jazz to outer-space chanting and beyond.

By 1972, sixteen-track recording was becoming more common and it is apparent from the side-long title track that Ra (and/or producer Michel) was keen to take advantage of this new technology by the use of overdubbing and elaborate stereo mixing strategies.”

While this record is on the Sun Ra Bandcamp page, there is no remastering or other extra stuff, must be a rights thing with the master tapes. Added to our Spotify playlist.

https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/space-is-the-place

i introduced my students to sun ra this week :)

yaaaay!

that's awesome LL! which one did you play? did they like it?

This performance of "Take the A Train" because we had already listened to other versions of it & they would be able to tell that his interpretation was a departure from the ones they had heard previously
https://youtu.be/k341z3dsXy4

i'm not sure they liked it exactly, but they definitely appreciated the inventiveness of his playing and dedication to experimentation. it was the best class i have had with this group in quar time, that was nice.

that Montreaux version is so good

1972 - Discipline 27-II

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0524190637_10.jpg

Released as an LP on Saturn in 1973, the only quadrophonic record to be released on Saturn proper (“a sign of the times” as Sun Ra Sundays dryly notes). Legitimately reissued just a couple of years ago after almost 50 years of zero reissues or press aside from a couple of grey-area bootlegs. The remastered version on Bandcamp notes:

Discipline 27-II was recorded in 1972, a product of the same sessions that would yield Sun Ra's legendary Space Is the Place LP. The recordings took place October 19–20 at Streeterville Studios, Chicago, featuring the largest Arkestra line-up Ra had taken into a studio. The date was produced by Impulse! and Riverside veteran Ed Michel.

There have been several atrocious-sounding bootleg editions on the market, but this 2017 fully authorized remaster reveals the rich clarity of these sessions. This edition was remastered for Strut Records by Peter Beckmann from the original master tapes in the Sun Ra Music Archive, under license from Sun Ra LLC.

On the original 1972 Saturn version released by Sun Ra, the 24-minute title track was inexplicably divided into four separate tracks at arbitrary points, thus interrupting the flow of the work. On this remastered edition, the title track has been restored to its proper length without interruption.

The LP version, released by Strut for Record Store Day 2017, features complete original artwork, full roster of players on each track, and new sleeve notes by Francis Gooding.

A CD edition was issued in October 2017 by Corbett vs. Dempsey Records.

Note yet another blatant fuckup in the Impulse reissue series, random silences inserted into a sidelong track, what a travesty.

Sun Ra Sundays writeup in the link, he loves the first side and hates the second. I will listen after posting here and see what I think.

OK "Neptune" is awesome, and apparently only on this release and a recent comp? I swear I've heard it before.

idk I dig the second side, I like the vamp the band grooves on, and the vocal interplay

the swelling, undulating horn motif + the hyper-tense free improv interplay of "discipline 8" are amazing. disjointed and tense, and then it sort of falls apart: cue "neptune" (welcome respite from tonal confusion and rhythmic uncertainties while still crisp and sharp), great moment.

1972 - I Roam The Cosmos

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3594211809_10.jpg

Just gonna C&P the entire Bandcamp writeup for this relatively new 2015 release, recorded in June 1972.

The composition "I Roam the Cosmos" has never before appeared on a commercial release. (It should not be confused with "We Roam the Cosmos," an entirely different Sun Ra title which has been issued.) The massive Campbell-Trent Sun Ra discography contains only two references to this title: a Voice of America monophonic tape of a 1973 performance at Carnegie Hall; and an audience tape of a 1974 performance at Hunter College. This recording is neither—it's clearly a soundboard recording and it's in extreme stereo.

The cosmo-drama begins with June Tyson reciting the lyrics to "Astro Black" over the dirge-like "Discipline 27-II" groove; it then segues into call-and-response declamations between Sun Ra and Tyson as the Arkestra sustains the languid "D27-II" rhythm for close to an hour, punctuated by choruses of horns. Seemingly switching identities—all in the first person—Ra intones cosmic philosophy, conjures enlightenment, proffers myths, and delivers dire forecasts, with Tyson echoing and dramatizing each invocation.

Based on tape box markings, the performance took place in July 1972 at the Lower East Side jazz mecca Slug's Saloon, located on East 3rd Street, where from the late 1960s to the early '70s Ra and the Arkestra frequently performed all-night sets. The personnel fluctuated, depending on who showed up, who could play (or capably fake) an instrument, and the bandleader's divinations. These legendary evenings were raw and unpredictable, often calamitous, and not without artistic controversy. They brought Sun Ra to the greater attention of New York jazz habitués and advanced his reputation for audacious showmanship. The 1972 album Universe in Blue contained performances recorded there, and many Slug's tapes survive in the Sun Ra Music Archive collection. The audio fidelity, room tone, channel separation, and mic artifacts on "I Roam the Cosmos" are very similar to those on Universe.

These recordings are not hi-tech; they were reportedly captured with a pair of microphones placed on or near opposite sides of the stage. Considering this primitive set-up, the fidelity is quite good, and the raw cosmic soul of this Sunny-June duet is undeniable.”

https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/track/i-roam-the-cosmos-premiere-release-1

No physical release, added to Spotify playlist.

cool, i'll be listening later today

oops, July '72 not June