Sun Ra - Nothing Is (1966)

Here's an album I've rather dreaded coming to. As we proceed through Sun Ra's catalog we're going to find a LOT of live albums. In general, the strength of the album is going to depend on the originality of the set, the line-up that night, quality of improvisation, and recording quality.

As these live albums start stacking up into a truly significant pile, we're going to have to start being truly critical. I say all this because Nothing Is (1966) is both historically important due to its early and wide distribution, and consequently, dearly loved by all.

Unfortunately that doesn't make it a really solid live album. For instance, I'm currently listening to another live album from 66, 'Outer Spaceways Incorperated' ('Spaceways' in the 'Calling Planet Earth' box) and can say that here at least we hear some material that really can't be heard elsewhere, essentially filling the void of another studio album. Nothing Is has about 20 minutes of original material (at least on my old ESP CD version), augmented by the fantastic Shadow World and lots of 2-3 minute long tracks (recaps of the arkestra favorites.) All of this is buried in a recording that lacks any semblance of dynamic range or separation.

Well let's get down to it. Nothing Is consists of three major tracks, of which Dancing Shadows and Exotic Forest can, to my knowledge, be heard nowhere else. I really dig Exotic Forest and it is worth the price of admission. For some reason, the more recent releases reversed Side A and B (at least, as it appears on my copy) and adds two tracks. My review here is based on the older version.

Dancing Shadows features some great playing by Ra; not far in it becomes a sort of swinging big band affair, but without much substance to chew. The low end percussion that so often defines Ra's music is either inaudible or not present. There's definitely some hard bop here as the piece winds up, but there's just not enough in this track to make it shine for me. The final harmonies/modality/whatever are pretty cool though.

Exotic Forest brings us back to Nubians. The melody is carried through the percussion (which is played by multiple musicians with various layers) while wind instruments improvise Egyptian melodies. Sun Ra doesn't appear on piano until the very end. Why no electronics?

When all is said and done, this recording just doesn't go far enough out for me. Is it in part because the album lacks any real dynamic range or is it because there's no sense of coherence. There's nothing wrong with Nothing Is, but there's also nothing that hasn't been done better elsewhere. Perhaps ESP saw value in a more conservative approach, not wanting to chase off new fans. It's so hard to say at this late date.

I suggest a radical view regarding one of Ra's most celebrated titles: Modern Sun Ra fans don't need it. In an age where something like 2/3rds or more of all the 'official' releases by Sun Ra are actually in print, Nothing Is makes little sense. Like other live albums, Nothing Is feels like 'just more' and not 'something new.' That doesn't mean there aren't great cuts and that Sun Ra fans should go without it, but rather that it its relative popularity among Ra's oeuvre feels unjustified. Save this one for later when you're looking to fill out your collection.

Sun Ra - Strange Strings

Although there is a lot to admire with Strange Strings, the album nicely exhibits (at least for me) the contrast between experimentalism with care and precision, and just experimentalism.

Recorded in 1966, no one need doubt that the first track (Worlds Approaching) is yet another monster cut from the same cloth as Heliocentric Worlds. Running at 10 minutes, it seems from an entirely different session as the rest of the material here, and should be heard by all Sun Ra fans.

It is with less enthusiasm that I address the remainder. Heard as something akin to AMM, it might, at least in parts seem significant. There are some great moments, but between those moments...

OK, so let's get down to what Strange Strings really is. Using amplified string instruments, the Arkestra commenced to improvise on said strings for 30 minutes. No one in the Arkestra had any sort real prior experience with stringed instruments. Again, there are parts I like--when it does work, it is mostly saved by its percussive nature and interesting use of various objects to produce all sorts of sound, but there doesn't seem to be much care taken with the overall product.

In very blunt terms, my general feeling is that I have probably spent more times combing over Strange Strings trying to think of a way to review it than the Arkestra spent making it. Instead, the recording seems all novelty. Yay! 30 minutes of improvised scraping. OK, I've spent a lot of my listening years listening to a lot worse, but regardless of reviews praising Strange Strings, I actually consider the whole thing as close to a 'fuck off' album as Sun Ra ever got. It took me a long time to review Magic City because the album DEMANDS careful attention. Careful and Strange Strings don't go together. Instead, 'novelty' and 'footnote' come to mind.

And then, there's Door Squeak (a bonus track on the Atavistic CD). 10 minutes of Sun Ra messing around with a squeaky door. The band does attempt to accompany it. I'd love to pass judgment, but of course music like this along with the two pieces which make up the 'Strange Strings' improvisation are the sort of art that might somewhere, possibly, be considered brilliant. Unfortunately I don't hear the brilliance myself. Maybe I've just been jaded by so many other people attempting similar things (*cough*even myself*cough*) and at this late date find it pretty dull, especially when set next to Ra's composed efforts or large scale 'constructed' improvisations.

So here's where I'd like to put Strange Strings aside. There's a lot of great material to come, and I feel like I've been stuck on this one album I don't really care for very much. Once again, fans of noise (not harsh noise), AMM and MEV might feel some kindred spirit here, but seriously, those bands are doing it far better than Sun Ra's afternoon-pretending-to-be-a-noise-artist.

Making the 90 min IPA clone beer

I know this isn't about Sun Ra, but it is ALMOST as important. Took some photos of a homebrew Dogfish Head 90 min IPA clone (extract).

Check out the armada of hops to be added!

Hops need to be added every 8 minutes for the 90 minute boil!

Looks more like curry than beer.

OG came in around 1.080 (after almost forgetting to add the extra water!) If this beer isn't good I will cry.

Sun Ra on Impulse

I don't know if this is news to anyone other than me. My first experience with Sun Ra was through the CD reissues on evidence. I didn't really keep track of how many had been issued on Impulse, though I've pretty consistently enjoyed everything I've heard on Impulse.

The other day I discovered this amazing site--http://www.jazzdisco.org/impulse-records

It's the entire discography of Impulse and lets you sort by artists. Unfortunately you can not sort by Sun Ra, but nothing on the internet can withstand the mighty power of Control+F.

All of the following were reissued (back in the 60's) on vinyl by impulse (a lot of the titles abridged):

Atlantis

Nubians

Magic City

Angels & Demons

Astro Black

Jazz in Silhouette

Fate in a pleasant mood

Supersonic Sounds

Bad & beautiful

Space is the Place

Now check out all these albums that Impulse planned to release (but never did):

Night of purple moon

Visits planet earth

My brother the wind (I'm assuming volume 1 which I still haven't heard)

Sound Sun Pleasure

Cosmic Tones

Travel the spaceways

Other planes

Art forms

Monorails

Cymbals

Crystal Spears

Pathways to unknown worlds

It's probably my fault for not reading all the evidence sleeves, but I had no idea that so much had come out on Impulse, and so much more should have come out on impulse. It seems strange that reissuing them on CD was done by a label other than Impulse, but perhaps there was some falling out between Sun Ra and Impulse? I'll leave this one to you Sun Ra detectives for the time being.

The Magic City

To become a god, you must destroy your own past. But history is no longer so easy to destroy, so perhaps it might be re-invented.

There's little doubt that much significance is bound in Sun Ra's 'Magic City' release from '65, given the reference to Birmingham. There's certainly little neutrality in the title, and the album is probably Sun Ra's most complex and ferocious. Can we wonder whether Sun Ra, then 50, might have looked back at his home town in a strange(r) light? If The Magic City does not describe Birmingham, might it instead describe the echo in Ra's mind that had made him whatever it was he had become?

I'm taking the view here that The Magic City (recorded between Heliocentric Worlds vol. 1 & 2) represents the peak of Ra's creative talent as composer and leader. Of course it is likely that Ra's methods at both were probably highly unorthodox, but The Magic City stands as one of the most challenging pieces of 20th century music; not simply jazz, but across all genres. It is at once clearly informed by modes within modern classical music, electronic, avant-garde, and free-blowing atonal jazz.

The title track, which may be more significant than the other tracks, spans nearly 30 minutes and both begins and ends with an apparent melody on Clavioline. From here, the Solar Arkestra expands, expands, and then expands again to explore pretty much everything within the range of the band. Light atmospheres combining keyboard and reeds. This first segment is utterly alien and sounds like a science fiction soundtrack. Gradually this becomes more and more demanding as the atonal horns come into play with attacks no less aggressive (possibly more so) than Heliocentric Worlds. Percussion comes into play and Ra shifts to piano. Rhythmically this is similar to Cosmic Tones in some ways, but the former is much more approachable.

Obviously across such length there is room for solos, but ultimately the full force of the entire Arkestra comes rolling in, and at this late point in the track, it is like listening to several pieces simultaneously. Lines which might be melody (it is hard to say) progress very quickly, almost as though someone is holding down the fast forward button, and we might say the piece has become 'hyper-dense'.

It winds down (as said before), with a keyboard / piano melody, but then there is a final blast of horns (again, shades of Helocentric Worlds). When all is said and done, this is no less than Kraanerg or Hymnen or other legendary pieces of experimental music. It no more belongs to jazz than any genre and it remains hard to understand where this music (early to mid 60's) came from.

Of the remaining tracks, 'Abstract Eye' and 'Abstract "I"' are both short and feel more like outtakes rather than major works. 'The Shadow World' however is quite the opposite. We have encountered this title before on the ESP 'Featuring Pharaoh Sanders' release, but here we can examine it with 'studio fidelity'...or at least, better fidelity than offered by the previous live recording. With careful listens, one may be surprised to discover that the track is in fact melodic, even if it doesn't sound that way at first. Listen to it casually and you'll hear a lot of low end percussion (perhaps strings) and some occasional outbursts of horns. The track heats up, gets loud for a while, and then it's over. Pretty much what we've come to expect from Heliocentric Worlds 1 & 2, but in this case we'd be wrong.

I've been spinning these discs off and on now (magic city, heliocentric worlds 1 & 2) for a few months, and although it may be that I've missed the subtlety elsewhere (not unlikely), I think I've only first started noticing the subtle melody in 'Shadow World' very, very recently. It is at first played by the percussion and what might be strings, and only after the track is been going well over a minute. Because it is being played so low, it is very likely you'll need to turn up the sound to make it out. What sounds purely like rhythm is not just rhythm but is a tiny melodic rift. Of course, this is Sun Ra melody we are talking about here, so it isn't just unusual that it is being played at the lowest possible register, and percussively nonetheless, but also is the sort many may not even call melody.

Since you've waited so long for this blog entry, I'll risk taking a tangent from not just Sun Ra but jazz as a whole and discuss metal. I probably know even less about metal than jazz, but having a friend with great expertise in the genre helped me understand a few things going on in the more difficult areas of metal--in particular, death metal. Like jazz, metal evolved to a point where many fans became alienated because they could no longer find the melody. They didn't know what to listen for. Death Metal for instance tends to use very short riffs, often played very fast, sometimes seemingly more rhythmic in nature than 'melodic', but these still in fact make up the melody. Until you hear these, death metal may just sound like some kids making guttural sounds flailing on their guitars, but once you start to hear the music....

...well, the same is true I think with a lot of Sun Ra. Melodies are often both subtle and bizarre. With 'The Shadow World', we have a melodic track that disguises its own melody. Certainly after 'The Magic City', you may have given up trying to find the melody, but yes, it is there...somewhere.

We are almost out of the woods with the 'heavy' albums. I don't know if that is good or not, since after Strange Strings, we see Sun Ra moving closer and closer to more accessible music, but we're still a decade away from playing on Saturday Night Live, so there's still a lot of strange music to come.

Day 43 Sun Ra -- Featuring Pharaoh Sanders & Black Harold

These posts are starting to become pretty infrequent as we enter some of the more challenging material. 'Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold' (now reissued on ESP with over 40 minutes of extra material) is a satisfactory and occasionally brilliant live performance from December 1964.

The immediate problem with 'live' Sun Ra, is that Ra was live continuously, and I imagine if every sound ever produced by the man and his arkestra were actually recorded, the hours needed to listen to it would see an infant Sun Ra listener through his late teens or even college years. This massive productivity by Sun Ra (or anyone for that matter) demands a curator if not the cruelest of editors. Of course, Sun Ra would have had no notion that so much of his music would at last become widely available, and like a good archivist sought to preserve everything. He certainly couldn't have imagined the efforts of Transparency to make hours and hours of live shows available, many of which are as significant as any of his official records.

So where is this 'immediate problem'? Perhaps it is just in my head, but one thinks of an artist refining their work, issuing at some point a full-blown statement (I think taken together, Heliocentric Worlds is one of these). Every show made on tour need not always have official releases. Without a curator though, there is nothing to distinguish what might have been meant as more definitive statements, and what was just another night's gig.

Hard core Sun Ra fans will likely dismiss this argument and I will side with them on the opportunity afforded by the availability of obscure Sun Ra recordings. The question however is whether EVERY Sun Ra recording should be considered an album?

'Featuring Pharaoh Sanders & Black Harold' is (for the most part) great stuff, and at times a significant step toward Heliocentric Worlds. There's an early version of Shadow World, while Black Harold adds considerable dimension with some killer flute playing on Voice of Pan and Dawn Over Israel. In fact, short of the too-often heard Rocken Number 9 (which is only 4 minutes anyway), everything on the original Saturn recording is quite exceptional.

The additional material is good as well, though 'The Other World'--a 20 minute blowing/percussion jam is a point of contention. Recently I've heard the Slug Saloon sessions released by Transparency, and we see huge blocks of time devoted to noodling; an aspect that Ra either only did in live shows or felt was better left off his records. Not that 'The Other World' is a bad track, but it is, to my ears, far less interesting than Ra's composed work, and it is of course these sorts of tracks that are always the longest!

Having given this album a few spins, I find my interest in the record starting with track 4, the magnificent 'The Now Tomorrow'. It starts gently enough with piano and flute, graduating to strings and reeds, echoing the sort of foreign melodies we've heard on Cosmic Tones. The piece wavers then graduates into a grand Sun Ra piano freakout. At 10 minutes this is a solid composition with a lot of room to fully explore musical possibilities. It's a great intermediate between Cosmic Tones and Heliocentric Worlds. The other new piece here, Discipline 9, is in fact a fat, extended version of We Travel the Spaceways.

The question then remains, is 'Featuring Pharaoh Sanders' just another live album (with live versions of all those songs you've already heard), or is it a critical work in the development of the Sun Ra sound? Is it an important window into what the Arkestra was up to, or is it just more?

I think there's suffient new material here, that and it being a substantial period of development for the Arkestra, that one can only concur with the former, but let's be cautious. The coming glut of live recordings should be caveat enough!

Day 31 Sun Ra - Heliocentric Worlds

I am skipping ahead slightly to 1965, and will return shortly to the magnificent 'featuring Pharaoh Sanders' disc. It is time for Heliocentric Worlds, and to be certain this is a huge undertaking. Not that 1965 is particularly far ahead of things like Coltrane's Ascension, but Heliocentric Worlds is its own work, still mostly unplumbed by other artists. It is certainly one of the Sun Ra greats! For completists, ESP now offers a 'volume 3' which is mostly a outtakes, but is certainly worth discussing.

Volumes 1 & 2 belong to different periods, but their approach to the music is close enough that grouping them together makes sense. In this case, volume 1 is from April while volume 2 is from November. Both discs feature an apparently 'improvised' sound, that was in fact composed by Sun Ra. I imagine there are elements of both; just as King Crimson's Starless period involves composed arrangements that were generated by and large out of improvisation.


Volume 1 is to my ears a little more difficult and less amazing than volume 2, but this should not keep you from hearing it. The tracks are shorter, but no less abstract and abrasive. In philosophy they are similar to Brotzmann's Machine Gun--which is to say there are huge symphonic blasts of dissonance, staggered between introspective moments (mostly low end and primal.) Although the tracks are shorter, it is possible to move from one track to the next with no sense of a break Unlike volume 2 there is no use of electronics, and with the heavy use of low-end instruments, the overall character of the album is a kind of heavy organic beast. It honestly has little parallel anywhere else in jazz or elsewhere.

By Other worlds, the tone seems to shift because of Ra's piano playing, but it is still punctuated by sustained blasts from the band and an overall frantic nature not present on earlier releases. Things finally do break with The Cosmos when the vibe becomes a primary focus--something that will remain true through the rest of the series and provide a gateway for volume 2's dreamy otherness.

If music has another mostly unexplored element, one of textural and tonal quality, where this pallet can be expressed akin to abstract art or the heights of cinematic expression, then it is hard to think of a better choice for exploring these elements of music (so far removed from the world of beat, lyrics and melody) then this pairing of albums. The latter tracks abandoning the 'blasts' of the first half and floating in a more subtle realm of color and mood.

Volume 2 is probably the superior of the two albums, although even having an opinion in this matter is worthless! Both need to be heard. Volume 2 is only 3 tracks, of which the 3rd (Cosmic Chaos) is similar in nature to volume 1 (fantastic!) The album as a whole differs from volume 1 because Ra's electric/electronic keyboard is audible and at times dominates. The other instrumentation is quite similar otherwise. Heavy use of low-end strings and bizarre percussion. In fact, it remains impossible to comment on this percussion as it bares no real parallel to anything else--I even stretched my musical memory to Indonesian Gamelan music, but it doesn't draw parallel to much of anything I know from non-western, traditional musics. Ultimately this is Sun Ra music and makes no concessions.

The first track, The Sun Myth, clocks in at 18 minutes and is dominated mostly by string and haunting keyboard, but the work is shifting and dense, so most descriptions will fall short. This is IMO one of the best works among the heliocentric worlds, utilizing at times near silence and a very large arkestra to explore just about all there is to explore.

Regardless, House of Beauty still floors me. After so many minutes of challenging music, somewhere in its short running time, Ra gives up and starts playing a bit of jazz, but its a strange, distorted view into some other world. The vision last only a few seconds and is again obscured. This is not earth, just a momentary dream of earth. Before all is said and done here, the raging red spot storm of Jupiter returns from volume 1, though now Ra's Jazz chops hold the tides in check, half melody, half madness.

Somewhere (I'm not sure where), House of Beauty turns into Cosmic Chaos. It is the coda for volume 1, but now a far superior creature through the strings and foreign percussion (cymbals of some sort, reminding me of Haino's Tenshi No Gijinka.) Ultimately the album ends where volume 1 began with orchestral blasts, and quiet introspective pauses.

I do not think there is even a hint of melody between the two albums. It is an incredible artistic victory and it is also fortunate that while these two are among the most heard Sun Ra recordings, they actually stand among his best; though they aren't representative of his overall output in anyway.

I know I've promised to review volume 3 here, but that's going to have to come on a future evening. It is not so spectacular as volumes 1 & 2 and may not deserve much more than footnote status, though it is certainly a good album. More to come...