There are literally hundreds of Sun Ra recordings. The recent issues from Transparency alone double the number of hours of available music from Sun Ra. I assume you have looked at the on-line resources including the discography available on-line or in Campell's book. If you are looking for help in your project you can reach me at estern@sternlaw.biz. Inconstant Sol has three very good concerts available in their archive. Other blogs have out of print items.
I'll be first to admit that I started this journey somewhat unprepared. I decided a couple weeks ago to just listen to the albums I have, in order. The reason being I wanted to better understand where Sun Ra was coming from.
In looking at internet resources however I realized there was a tremendous amount I did not have, and decided to at least take up the challenge of attempting to hear as much of the catalog as I could--although this undoubtedly means obtaining some 'digital copies'.
To address your first issue (hundreds of albums), I am treating the transparency releases as bootlegs and non-official. Obviously I have a few of them and dig them, but I don't plan to include them. I'm sticking to the 130 or so albums that are outlined on wikipedia and on a few other sources.
That said, I may end up covering them, but since the transparency releases may well double the number of hours of material, I am not making any promises.
This rationale applies to some of the Atavistic reissues. Namely I am considering any live shows that are recent releases (IE transparency and atavistic) to be non-canon; but this is only to avoid having to hear every single live performance by Sun Ra and not a comment on the quality of the releases by those two labels.
The other issue you bring up that I want to address is not having read any book yet about Sun Ra. I was planning on ordering the 'Space is the Place' book shortly, but admit it is a move of complete ignorance on my part. I recognize that a lot of people admire the 'hearing the music without preconceptions', but these sounds do not appear out of nowhere and I'm anxious to digest some of the background material about the arkestra.
Thanks for your comment and I will take you up on your offer if there are titles I can't find.
I really liked Szwed's book and I think that is a good place to start. I read another book "LOCK, GRAHAM - BLUETOPIA" was also good. It contains writing by Lock related to Braxton, Ellington, and Sun Ra.
I agree that sometimes people get so excited about sharing what they know and love about music that it gets to be too much. My comment was just an offer of help. You should go about this in any manner you choose. I certainly did and I would not want to interfere with your experiencing this work for yourself.
I think the 1980's period is more difficult in part because there are years where few official releases occurred and also because, many of the Saturn releases from the period have not been re-issued.
I do think eventually you will want to try to hear some of the Transparency releases and some of the other un-official live recordings. Many of them like the transparency issue of the entire week of Live sets from the Detroit residencey are really interesting.
Most of the Atavistic material is made up of actual re-issues of official Saturn recordings. (They have been adding tracks which were never released to get people to buy them a second time. ESP just did this with the "Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold" set which is great and double the length of the original).
Sun Ra recorded and released many of his rehearsals and live sets. This means a lot of repetition, but also a real opportunity to hear how the music evolved. Sun Ra himself is quoted on this topic and he was fully aware of what he was doing by documenting everything he could.
I am no expert, but I thought I would pass on some of what I have found out. Campbell's original work does not include the Transparency items for the obvious reason that these items did not exist when that work was published.
Lastly, there is a torrent available of nearly all of the work Campbell lists. So at least a hundred of these titles can be downloaded.
There are literally hundreds of Sun Ra recordings. The recent issues from Transparency alone double the number of hours of available music from Sun Ra. I assume you have looked at the on-line resources including the discography available on-line or in Campell's book. If you are looking for help in your project you can reach me at estern@sternlaw.biz. Inconstant Sol has three very good concerts available in their archive. Other blogs have out of print items.
ReplyDeleteI'll be first to admit that I started this journey somewhat unprepared. I decided a couple weeks ago to just listen to the albums I have, in order. The reason being I wanted to better understand where Sun Ra was coming from.
ReplyDeleteIn looking at internet resources however I realized there was a tremendous amount I did not have, and decided to at least take up the challenge of attempting to hear as much of the catalog as I could--although this undoubtedly means obtaining some 'digital copies'.
To address your first issue (hundreds of albums), I am treating the transparency releases as bootlegs and non-official. Obviously I have a few of them and dig them, but I don't plan to include them. I'm sticking to the 130 or so albums that are outlined on wikipedia and on a few other sources.
That said, I may end up covering them, but since the transparency releases may well double the number of hours of material, I am not making any promises.
This rationale applies to some of the Atavistic reissues. Namely I am considering any live shows that are recent releases (IE transparency and atavistic) to be non-canon; but this is only to avoid having to hear every single live performance by Sun Ra and not a comment on the quality of the releases by those two labels.
The other issue you bring up that I want to address is not having read any book yet about Sun Ra. I was planning on ordering the 'Space is the Place' book shortly, but admit it is a move of complete ignorance on my part. I recognize that a lot of people admire the 'hearing the music without preconceptions', but these sounds do not appear out of nowhere and I'm anxious to digest some of the background material about the arkestra.
Thanks for your comment and I will take you up on your offer if there are titles I can't find.
I really liked Szwed's book and I think that is a good place to start. I read another book "LOCK, GRAHAM - BLUETOPIA" was also good. It contains writing by Lock related to Braxton, Ellington, and Sun Ra.
ReplyDeleteI agree that sometimes people get so excited about sharing what they know and love about music that it gets to be too much. My comment was just an offer of help. You should go about this in any manner you choose. I certainly did and I would not want to interfere with your experiencing this work for yourself.
I think the 1980's period is more difficult in part because there are years where few official releases occurred and also because, many of the Saturn releases from the period have not been re-issued.
I do think eventually you will want to try to hear some of the Transparency releases and some of the other un-official live recordings. Many of them like the transparency issue of the entire week of Live sets from the Detroit residencey are really interesting.
Most of the Atavistic material is made up of actual re-issues of official Saturn recordings. (They have been adding tracks which were never released to get people to buy them a second time. ESP just did this with the "Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold" set which is great and double the length of the original).
Sun Ra recorded and released many of his rehearsals and live sets. This means a lot of repetition, but also a real opportunity to hear how the music evolved. Sun Ra himself is quoted on this topic and he was fully aware of what he was doing by documenting everything he could.
I am no expert, but I thought I would pass on some of what I have found out. Campbell's original work does not include the Transparency items for the obvious reason that these items did not exist when that work was published.
Lastly, there is a torrent available of nearly all of the work Campbell lists. So at least a hundred of these titles can be downloaded.