Hello, again. You probably think I had completely given up
on Sun Ra Sunday, having not posted anything since the end of July. Around that
time I ordered The Eternal Myth Revealed, the mammoth 14-disc box set on
Transparency which collects most (if not all) of Sun Ra’s earliest recordings,
including some speculative tracks that may or may not have some connection to
Sun Ra. I figured I’d need to have it should I ever circle back around and
cover the period leading up to the Choreographer’s Workshop recordings, where I
(accidentally) began Sun Ra Sunday in earnest back in 2008.
I have not listened to one note (or word) of this box set—in
fact, I haven’t listened to any Sun Ra since my last post. This situation
cannot is intolerable! So much great music awaits—not just the contents on this
box but going forward where we left off: more solo piano sets, the legendary
Horo LPs and the complete Media Dream and Disco 3000 concerts recently
resurrected by Art Yard. My intention remains to examine Sun Ra’s recordings up
through 1980 and Sunrise In Different Dimensions, which seems like a good
cut-off point. After that, I plan to start over from the beginning, starting
with the material found on The Eternal Myth Revealed. One day, I hope to
publish this chronological overview of Sun Ra’s recordings as a monograph—ha!
2013 promises to be a big year—but even if I can get back to
a weekly posting schedule, it will take a long time to complete this project. Stay
tuned!
5 comments:
We can wait Rodger - well at least I can. This is timeless music after all. Sunrise seems like a good cut off although that does mean you'll stop just short of The Rose Hue Mansions of the Sun which is a pretty good record but has one of the best titles ever.
This is great news, Rodger! Can't wait to hear what you have to say about the box.
@ Jean K - It is somewhat arbitrary, but after 1980, the number of "bootlegs" increases exponentially. I'm not sure I'm ready to go there. At least not until I've covered the early years!
@ Sam - well, I may try to carve out some time to listen to some stuff out of sequence. I am certainly curious about much of the contents on that box!
I've listened to most of the 14 cds since getting it, and it is really amazing. Michael Anderson put together a very thorough picture of Sun Ra's early years. Some have complained that he narrates way too much, but I enjoy radio documentaries, and this is really one very large radio doc, with all the music to listen to, not just excerpts. He has more in the archives that needs proper funding before it gets released, so I think it is a great time to be a Sun Ra fan.
My copy arrived a couple of weeks ago and I got through disc one and was way more impressed than I thought i would be. looking forward to exploring it more over the years to come, onece i get my additional CD shelf and dig it out from under the large pile of CDs on top of it.
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