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...

Day 23 Sun Ra - Other Planes of There

This is going to be one of those entries that's more about me than about Sun Ra or Other Planes of There (1964.) I already knew well in advance that this album would be something of a stumbling block because I can't say I care for it that much, but on the other hand it is clearly a significant album and one that deserves serious attention. Meanwhile, my already busy week turned into a nightmare as I came down with some horrible flu that had me struggling to keep down food, and barely able to stay up for more than 8 hours at a stretch before feeling utterly exhausted.

Other Planes of there is NOT the album you want as your sick-bed soundtrack, and to be certain, I listened to plenty of other things much more pleasant (a lot of Monk actually) while trying to ignore this whopper! It features one of Ra's first huge numbers (the title track is 22 min), something like a drunken Ascension, but not as good. It's an interesting first take, but I just don't feel the piece as a whole sustains itself. There are some good performances throughout, but not anywhere on par with Gods on Safari from the same year. As a postscript, the first dissonant chord of Other Planes of There is phenomenal, right out of something from Ligeti. I just don't feel the rest of the track lives up to it.

The shorter tracks fare better, perhaps because they are shorter. All the pieces here are entirely acoustic (no electric keyboards, echo effects, etc.) The second track is an interesting piano/percussion duet that is as unworldly/surreal as any later electronic efforts, managing a simultaneous frantic/subdued vibe. The phone starts ringing sometime around four and a half minutes, but someone thankfully takes the phone off the hook.

I rather like the piece Pleasure, which once again has that beautiful, sunken, destroyed thing going on. Music for some place long past midnight when music just starts bending in on itself enough for you to notice it isn't right anymore. Perhaps this is a better soundtrack for my sickness?

Spiral Galaxy is probably the best track here, and at 10 minutes it isn't a lightweight. With a marching-band rythym section, layers of reeds and horns are slowly built upon this driving beat; denser and denser. At last this breaks for individual solos, but still the drums keep pounding away. The prospect of a Sun Ra marching band might seem pretty outlandish, but the possibilities suggesting here are inviting.

My final take isn't the most positive. Are there good tracks on this album? yes, there are. Are there good moments throughout? yes to that as well. In fact there's nothing wrong with this album in anyway other than it just not particularly clicking with me until the latter half, and even then it isn't out and beyond any of Ra's other work from this period. It IS significant because he is experimenting with longer pieces and ever increasing abstractness, but we might find better examples elsewhere. Personally I'd give this one a pass until you've heard the other major works from this period (including the recently reissued 'featuring Pharaoh Sanders' CD on ESP. Then it will no doubt be a good time to hear this album. It isn't the best music for when your suffering from the flu.

Day 18 Sun Ra part 2 - Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy

This was my first Sun Ra purchase, and what an introduction it was! Wikipedia lists the CD coming out in 2000, but my receipt (yes, I still have it!) dates back to 1994. This was a time I both knew little to nothing about jazz and only wanted to hear the most far-out music possible. Cosmic Tones fit that bill, but it's hard to say whether I really understood its significance or not. Certainly Cosmic Tones does not sound like jazz (or anything else), and I dug that, but it would be a long time before I'd appreciate more of what Sun Ra was actually doing.

Cosmic Tones was recorded in 1963, so if it is taking its influence from anywhere, 20th century experimental classical music seems the only contender. I've noted elsewhere that possible connection, but it seems a real option to me that the seed of the idea is within jazz itself which is already playing with abstract in the large. The range afforded by ensembles means that richer clusters of tones and atmospheres could be accomplished. Did Sun Ra need to reach outside of jazz for more influence? Whatever the reason, Ra seemed pretty excited about the possibilities of electric/electronic instruments and effects. The echo effect pioneered on Art Forms returns (it is a strange choice that Evidence placed that album second on the CD) and Sun Ra restricts himself to Astro Space Organ (well, let's just say he doesn't play traditional piano.)

And Otherness starts out in what seems like another 'Egypt Atmosphere' piece, but quickly becomes utterly alien. All-band sustained tone clusters with weird undulations and wailings come to dominate. Around this, Ra and others improvise in half-melody, half-atonalism I remember vividly listening to the progressive rock band Henry Cow at the time and considering the parallel between these kinds of music. And Otherness is very much an arranged piece, but it is new music, with little connection to our musical world.

Thither and Yon once again starts like something off Nubians, but then the echo effect kicks in on the drums. Late in the piece the echo starts effecting everything and in the background there seems to be some weird keyboard playing, but perhaps it is something else. This is total and complete weirdness. Adventure Equation keeps the echo, but in time takes on a strange loping melody. Impossible to describe. I thought it would be easy to write about this album because I've heard it a million times, but its as indescribable as it was back in 94. The melody line here is actually rather catchy.

And then all at once we come to Moon Dance; probably the track this album is most famous for. Moon Dance has a groove in a way you probably wouldn't suspect for Sun Ra. It is not the sheer avant-garde we've heard before, but space-age lounge music a decade in advance. Led by the base-line, Sun Ra dominates on keyboard. I've not much to add about this track other than it being a long time favorite of mine. It's probably the most accessible thing here.

The album closes with the amazing Voice of Space that returns to hither unknown worlds of music as denoted on tracks one, two and three. Echo? yes. Futuristic keyboard? yes. Strange, nearly-atonal improvisation on reeds? Of course. Ra plays a bizarre, nearly random series of pulses on keyboard, which may or may not be melody. At times keyboard and reeds work together to create something beyond unworldly. Something like the fusion of the Forbidden Planet soundtrack and...what? Jazz? I don't know, but there's nothing else like it.

If the past two albums focused on what could be accomplished down the free-blowing route, this one abandons all that (and the direction jazz was going) for something completely different. It is hard to say what influence this recording might have had if it had been heard upon recording, or heard in great numbers upon initial release in 1967. More than likely, it would have been too far ahead, but speculating how artists in various genres might have reacted to Cosmic Tones at the time is definitely worth speculating about.

Day 18 Sun Ra - When Angels Speak of Love

When angels speak of love, this is the whole Rilke 'Every angel is terrifying' sort of angel. And I can't say much about the love.

The opening track (Celestial Fantasy) starts with an isolated screeching reed as black as some Fushitsusha recording. It is accompanied by subtle echo-effected-percussion and some low horns/winds. The next track (The Idea of it All) may at first seem like a jazz standard throwback, but quickly breaks down into a 7+ minute bout of hard blowing atonalism. This is continued on Ecstacy of Being, but with less regard to jazz structure and more piercing moments like Celestial Fantasy. It also clocks in at nearly 10 minutes. No sensation of love yet, unless it's the love of blowin' your mind.

The title track is low key, low end, beautiful and at moments potentially straight, but then the horns start blowing high pitch sustained tones, such that the discrepancy between the two is a work of surrealism.

The centerpiece of the album however is the hard blowing 18 minute Next Stop Mars. It's a harrowing number with the loud, Brotzman like moments, but also highlighted are some of the individual performances (Ra's obsession with using the piano in Cage-like percussive manner; IE more like mallets on steel than for melodic purposes, etc.) This is forward looking stuff, though not out of step with forthcoming albums from the same period.

I will have to go back and listen to some of the other 'out' jazz from this period to gain a sense of perspective. Coleman's 'Free Jazz' album is 61, and this is 63. It's easy to say which is more ferocious and pioneering, but no one heard this album. I wonder who else, if anyone, was coming close to performances this abrasive in the early 60's.

My final take on the album? Well, it is a fantastic one, but it is also challenging with little regard for the listener other than continuing to push them as far as possible. You won't find melodic hooks or even the whole modality thing that Ra seems to be famous for. Whether it is free jazz or not, it is unrooted (IE no improvisation along a scale or chord) screeching and wailing. I dig it, but not at 6:30 in the morning.

Day 16 Sun Ra - When Sun Comes Out

Man, it's getting harder and harder to find time to write about Sun Ra. I've given a lot of time in the last few days to 'When Sun Comes Out' (62) and 'When Angles Speak of Love' (63). There are a couple other oddities from this period, What's New and Invisible Shield. If I can find a way to hear and discuss them I will, but I'm not making any promises.

For today's entry (there may be a second entry later if time permits), I want to get my thoughts out there on 'When Sun Comes Out', an album that never really settles down to any one particular thing.

The first two tracks (Circe, The Nile) are Sun Ra doing his weird Egyptian soundtrack thing, the former having odd female vocals. There's another version of We Travel the Spaceways that turns into a free-blowing piece. This approach continues through the frantic Calling Planet Earth, but is abruptly cut short by the bizarrely out of place Dancing Shadows (a stylistic return to 56.)

The Rainmakers at first seems to continue the retro-50's style, but it's slightly more out tonally. The original final track, When Sun Comes Out, continues right where Rainmakers left off, but comes full circle by transforming into a free blowing number. There's pretty weird use of percussion and the horns rip, but neither this track nor anything on the album (up until this point anyway) is really mind blowing.

Now the evidence CD adds a discovered track from the same period (Dimensions in Time) and this one is truly out! Bongo with echo/delay effect and some weird melodic lines. I don't have a good language to describe this sort of sound, but effectively this is the Cosmic Tones sound, but isn't quite there.

Have now heard the album a good dozen times, I can't argue about the albums strengths, but it certainly is a middling album between the towering transitional efforts of the late 50's, and those albums which are to follow immediately. It is not as satisfying as Secrets of the Sun, though is probably about on par with Art Forms.

My personal take for the non-completest is to avoid this release. Paired with Fate in a Pleasant Mood (so far, the release I have been most bored by), this CD just doesn't show off the Arkestra's talents the way so many of the surrounding albums do. While virtually everything else from this period is quite impressive, this CD has two good, but not spectacular albums. All that said, good does not equal poor. I'm glad I own the CD.

Day 12 Sun Ra - Secrets of the Sun

Recorded in 1962, Secrets of the Sun is probably the album that should be paired with Artforms, and is certainly closest to that album in spirit. I'm suspecting there's a similar relationship between When Sun Comes Out and When Angles Speak of Love, but let's worry about those albums when the times come. Clearly Evidence issued what they could in the most economical/effective way they could manage, and at that time, including Secrets of the Sun was not an option.

In 2009 however, thanks to the Unheard Music Series (Atavistic), we have several previously unavailable releases that are as essential as the ones released by Evidence. I'm still very skeptical about some of the live releases on this series, but Secrets of the Sun is an absolute winner and should be purchased without hesitation.

The overall tone is similar to Artforms, but there's little or no use of the echo effect and the material seems more active and lush (though possibly darker.) Of particular interest are two early (and quite edgy) versions of Friendly Galaxy and Love in Outer Space. There's also odd use of vocal on Solar Differentials.

I'm not sure this album is totally consistent overall. There are parts where Sun Ra charts lonely and alien regions, pressing toward a darker tone than heard on previous albums, while the centerpiece of the album, the 17 min Flight to Mars is a bit brighter and more rambunctious, though no less fantastic!

I have to say once more how much I'm enjoying this transitional material--it's almost gone so I better sing it's praise while I can! Secrets of the Sun hits a lot of ground, succeeding in areas of technique, atmosphere, sophistication and surprisingly a few numbers that really swing. I'm imagining some super-straight jazz folks who couldn't take this album, but I'd think any Coltrane fan could connect the dots and dig it. This is still a GREAT jazz album while still edging out ever more. This is a place I wish Ra could have lingered a little bit longer...

Day 10 Sun Ra - Art forms of Dimensions Tomorrow

Recorded in 61-62, Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow seems to be the first truly avant garde release with only about half of its numbers being recognizably jazz. Even then, the 'jazz' pieces are the wrecked and shattered fuselages of what has come before. The version of Ankh here, for instance, is the most destroyed version of that song to date, both sounding as though it was recorded underwater and with only some ancestral recognition of what the song originally sounded like.

Another piece that seems to be jazz (The Outer Heavens) plays with tonal 'clusters' or clouds, experimenting with non-traditional melodic possibilities. There is significant parallel to 20th century classical and experimental music, which is a theme that runs through the whole album.

The new thing here seems to have been the discovery by 'Bugs' Hunter of an unintentional echo effect that turns the rhythmic numbers into impenetrable and bizarre pieces that only find parallel in experimental electronic works (Xenakis, Barron's Forbidden Planet soundtrack, etc.) They may sound somewhat goofy now, but it is hard to imagine how this would have sounded in context.

The album winds down with two pieces which seem closer to traditional fare (Lights on a Satellite, Kosmos in Blue), but there's a subdued unearthliness to both of them. As before, Ra focuses both on low end and stretching the limits of what qualifies as in-tune. These aren't mind bending songs, but they are good Sun Ra numbers. Lights on a Satellite in particular has a few unusual hooks for a seemingly mellowed-out number; I love seeing the arkestra work just a tiny bit of weirdness into nice, relatively pleasant tunes.

Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow is of course paired with the absolutely essential Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, so there's no question about not purchasing it. Still, there's no way I could have cheated it out of some sort of review since it is the first of the NY albums that really begins to break away (or totally redefine) jazz.

Day 9 Sun Ra part 2 - My collection

This clearly isn't sufficient to get me to the end.

Note: I have NO 80's Sun Ra.

Day 9 Sun Ra - The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra

The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra (1961) or We Are the Future (as it is sometimes known) are both bad titles for this rather enjoyable album. You might think that this was a very forward looking release, kicking off their arrival in NYC, but if anything, it is a last, longing look back at what the Arkestra had been. Like Super Sonic Jazz, this sort of summing up of things works pretty well, but perhaps then another title would be more appropriate. There's nothing on Futuristic Sounds that pushes the boundaries of jazz as far as Angels, Nubians or We Travel the Spaceways, and certainly little to hint at the following release, Artforms for Dimensions Tomorrow.

Those misgivings aside, Futuristic Sounds is a solid release without a weak track. The first three numbers are seemingly more straightforward but share a rather high density in their arrangements with hints of some interesting tonal color (something that develops as the album progresses.) These pieces remind me some of Mingus's more complex compositions--I find this kind of thing rewarding, but I think for Sun Ra it is a bit of a dead end.

By the fourth track (Where is Tomorrow?) things become more interesting. The track features a duet between flute and low end reed (Gilmore on Bass Clarinet...or is it Patrick on baritone sax?) which works to pleasant but still haunting effect (if that's possible.) Things really heat up with tracks 5 and 7 (The Beginning and China Gates) which are very much in the spirit of Nubians and make good use of non-traditional/non-western melodies. The song, China Gates, probably wouldn't find much of an audience today with its goofy vocals, but instrumentally it sounds like one of the Impulse Pharaoh Sanders albums.

This more daring part of the album is signaled to a close by yet another rendition of Ra's beautiful Tapestry From Another Asteroid...I'm probably never going to get tired of this piece, but I don't need it on every album. Of what remains, Jet Flight and Space Jazz Reverie are something of a return to the straighter Ra, but there's subtlety with these songs, a slight unease between the soloists and arkestra, a playfulness with what is melodic. If my ears were more trained I could probably say something about the fantastic modal playing implemented here, but I'm afraid my ears are only self-trained.

Looking Outward (track 10) is definitely one of the highlights here, at times creating drones on the reeds with repeating flute melodies all over a pan-African rhythm section.

Many reviewers and writers have looked for a break between the Sun Ra of the 50's and the 60's, noting that Sun Ra's move to NY seems to have triggered his most outside music, though Futuristic Sounds does not fit that bill, while some of his Chicago albums (already reviewed) are much more daring than this one. Nonetheless, we may look for another division. Up until this point, Ra has been by and large acoustic, and the shift from that to the use of special effects and electronic keyboards will usher in a new sound. Whether there is any causal relationship between any of these factors, it's hard to say. Ra certainly has his fair share of fiercely experimental acoustic albums, but regardless, this is the last of the mostly traditional, acoustic album we will be hearing for some time. Thus, I'm drawing a line in the sand here and will later be posting a quick summing up of this period, making recommendations for essential purchases.

Now we truly are entering the future!

Day 8 Sun Ra - Super Sonic Jazz

Well, Thursday and Friday were a bit too hectic here to post about Sun Ra, but it didn't keep me from giving up some of my attention to Super Sonic Jazz (1956) and The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra (1961). Both are great albums, though I only have time to discuss the former this morning.

I've been debating what the best Sun Ra purchase might be for someone looking for the 'early' and 'straight'. This is effectively a stand off between Sun Song, Sound of Joy and Jazz in Silhouette (I think we can ignore Holiday for Soul Dance and Sound Sun Pleasure as these albums are entirely covers.) Of course, one could argue that between Angels & Demons (half of which comes from 56) and Visits Planet Earth (containing half of Sound of Joy) you may need nothing else from the 'early & straight' roster.

Here enters Super Sonic Jazz, disputing the 'you don't need more' argument, while being a much more satisfying album than the other titles from 56.

Where Super Sonic Jazz works wonders is in the variety department (a theme that will carry over to Futuristic Sounds). While the overview approach does nothing for me on Fate in a Pleasant Mood, here it works to great effect. Featuring pieces which could (and did) appear on other albums from the same period (El is a Sound of Joy, Medicine for a Nightmare), these sit comfortably next to some very forward looking electric piano pieces (India, Advice to Medics). Portrait of the Living Sky and Springtime in Chicago feature a more open and expansive sound with an emphasis on Ra's piano playing. Some of the more traditional upfront jazz pieces are balanced out by the melancholic Sunology I & II. Throughout the album's running time, there is always a sense of balance.

This album definitely succeeds at showcasing the amazing compositions and musical ability of the band and makes a nice send-off for the 50's. We won't hear this sort of thing again from the Arkestra for some time, so it's really been nice to have it kicking around the last couple days. Definitely an easy purchase for those who want a good, representative album from this period.