Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Herald (ESP 4054)

Recorded live at Judson Hall in New York, NY on December 31, 1964.
Portions originally released as Saturn JHNY-165 in 1976.

With little paying work for the Arkestra, John Gilmore quit the band in August 1964 to tour the world with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. This could have been a crushing blow to Sun Ra, if not for his involvement in the short-lived Jazz Composers Guild and its predecessors. Trumpeter/composer Bill Dixon had been putting on performances at the Cellar Café on West 91st Street and these efforts developed into the legendary “October Revolution in Jazz.” These concerts drew large crowds to hear the cream of the “New Thing,” including Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley, Jimmy Giuffre, Andrew Hill, Steve Lacy, and others who would go on to define the cutting edge of avant garde jazz. Shortly thereafter, Dixon and Taylor decided to form a cooperative called the Jazz Composers Guild which would promote the new music while seeking an economic alternative to the exploitive nightclub system. Sun Ra and the Arkestra were quick to join and two months later, the Guild mounted series of concerts at Judson Hall called “Four Nights in December,” the last of which featured Sun Ra’s Arkestra. Portions of that concert are presented on this recently re-issued CD on ESP-Disk.

Sonny had known Farrell “Little Rock” Sanders since 1962, when Sanders was working as a waiter at the Gene Harris Playhouse (where the Arkestra was playing to miniscule audiences). Ra took him in and gave him some clothes and suggested he take on the name, “Pharoah.” By the time Gilmore split, Sanders was ready to join the band and you can hear that he’s already developed the blisteringly intense sound quality that would make him famous with John Coltrane’s band. Not much is known about Black Harold a/k/a Harold Murray a/k/a Sir Harold a/k/a Brother Atu a/k/a Atu Murray, etc. except that he played flute and a big, hand-carved drum with Sun Ra during this brief period. This recording is the only known document of Pharoah’s and Black Harold’s tenure with the Arkestra.

The rest of the personnel for this concert are kind of a mystery. The liner notes to this new CD give the following: Sun Ra: piano, celeste; Pharoah Sanders: tenor sax; Black Harold (Harold Murray): flute, log drum; Al Evans: trumpet; Teddy Nance: trombone; Marshall Allen: alto sax; Pat Patrick: baritone sax; Alan Silva: bass; Ronnie Boykins: bass; Cliff Jarvis: drums; Jimmhi Johnson: drums; and Art Jenkins: space voice. Prof. Campbell (2d ed.) adds Chris Capers on trumpet; Bernard Pettaway on trombone; Robert Northern on French horn; Danny Davis on alto sax, flute, and percussion; and Robert Cummings on bass clarinet but he omits Boykins. It is definitely a largish Arkestra, though they rarely all play at the same time, so it’s hard to tell. I do hear Cummings’s bass clarinet and, after repeated listening, I believe there are two bassists on this gig.

The CD starts out with nearly forty-five minutes of previously unissued material from this New Year’s Eve concert recorded in stereo. The brief “Cosmic Interpretation” opens the proceedings with some frenetic solo piano that outlines a vague tonal center. Ra then moves to the chiming celeste while the arco bass gets increasingly busy. Solo bass plays a jagged ostinato figure to introduce “The Other World” where Pharoah is well into his fire-breathing modus operandi. The first several minutes features some intense “New Thing” styled group improvisation. Pat Patrick takes brilliant accapella baritone sax solo, until trumpet joins in for a duet. After a less-than-convincing return to the pummeling free-jazz feel, things just sort of peter out at about the six minute mark yielding an incredibly lengthy, and rather pointless drum solo. At about the nineteen minute mark (!), trombone leads the horns back in for some honking and shrieking to introduce the space chant, “The Second Stop is Jupiter,” while the bass returns to the jagged ostinato figure. Some one emphatically declaims: “All out for Jupiter!” and the cacophonous horns return with trombone once again leading the way. After a while, all drop out for, yes, more drums! Thankfully, the track fades out after only another minute or so.

“The Now Tomorrow” begins with a lovely setting for piano and flutes in bittersweet harmony. Bowed bass enters and then things start to get weird when Marshall Allen takes a labyrinthine turn on oboe along with what sounds like a second oboe or soprano saxophone joining in along the way. And perhaps there are two basses sawing away here? I think so! Ra enters with rumbling piano to a smattering of applause. Ra plays intricate, contrasting figures on piano and celeste simultaneously until the horns (including bass clarinet) play fragments of the original harmonies to end. This is a very interesting piece of music.

On “Discipline 9,” Ra starts out with a twisty piano intro for some yearning horn figures that hover and glide over a stumbling ballad tempo. Two altos and bass clarinet twirl around the meandering rhythm while trombone interjects clipped statements here and there. Ra then establishes the brooding three-note vamp of “We Travel the Spaceways” which the rest of the band takes up in song. The horn break in this version is particularly loose, fragile, and hauntingly beautiful. The rhythm section settles into a comfortable groove while Art Jenkins does his “space voice” thing. The rest of the Arkestra takes up percussion instruments before the reprise of the singing and horn break. Someone blows ceremonially into a large conch shell while sleigh bells jingle…some applause…is it over? Then the bass riff returns and the applause dies down. Gentle percussion pitter-patters until a big conducted “space chord” charges in full of honking and wailing and pounding drums. Then the bass riff starts up again with flutes and trumpet dancing around. It sounds like they’re marching off the stage leaving only bass to end.

The original Saturn LP (recorded in mono) follows. “Gods on a Safari” showcases some furious two-handed piano action from Ra and some abstract ensemble figures all which quickly subsides leaving some slip-sliding arco bass(es?) and the quiet tinkling of bells. Ra takes over with some slyly dissonant piano solo that launches into the roiling up-tempo drive of “The World Shadow.” The piano and rhythm section build up the agitated feeling similar to “The Shadow World” with Pharoah approximating the knotty melody, but it sounds tenuous. Eventually, he glides into more of his leather-lunged multi-phonics and extreme over-blowing. Pealing trumpet takes over as the rhythm becomes ever more intense and abstract. Suddenly, there is a relaxation of tension, leaving some polyrhythmic percussion and a droning conch shell. More space voice warblings from Jenkins follow until Ra enters on the toy-like celeste. Bass then sets up the groove for “Rocket Number 9” and off they go. Ra and the bass(es?) outline the skittering chord sequence while the ensemble chants, “Rocket Number 9 take off for the planet Venus! Venus!” A brief drum solo follows until the horns enter in full polyphonic force, culminating a big, blasting “space chord.” Pharoah then wails some more on tenor sax over the scattered, enervated rhythms, Ra stabbing out angular chords on piano. Pharaoh takes one last turn before giving way to some bass and drum grooving that quickly fades out.

A quick edit cuts into “The Voice of Pan.” As befitting the title, Black Harold’s breathy, vocalized flute soars over tippy-tapping percussion and subtle bass figures. This has a similar in feel to some of the Choreographers Workshop material and even shares some of that echo-y ambience – added, perhaps, after the fact. Harold’s schtick is pretty amusing and gets a rise out of the audience. Then, a widely-spaced ensemble chord introduces “Dawn Over Israel,” a lurching ensemble piece with sing-song-y bowed basses, fleeting horn figures and Ra’s convoluted piano. Ra suddenly takes over with a furiously pounding piano solo that eventually breaks up into some really nasty (unintended) distortion. Ra brings things down with some gentle chords to introduce “Space Mates.” Mellow flute melodies float over piano and celeste while bass(es) and percussion murmur in the background until the horns offer some supporting harmonies for a gentle close. Nice.

The Jazz Composers Guild shortly disintegrated due to the inevitable bitterness and acrimony that arises in such leaderless, ad hoc groupings of ambitious people. Dixon himself would be the first to leave and Ra abandoned ship shortly thereafter, complaining that the Arkestra was doing all the work. Despite its failings, the Guild’s efforts continued to resonate throughout the sixties and seventies with the Jazz Composers Orchestra, the Black Artists Group, the AACM and others. More immediately, Bernard Stollman, a local attorney who represented musicians, was inspired enough by the music he heard at these Guild-sponsored concerts to sign many of the performers, including Ra, to his ESP-Disk label. Stollman had previously established ESP-Disk to promote his other obsession, the “universal language” of Esperanto, so he knew how to make records with minimal expense. Stollman gave the musicians free reign (if limited budgets) to produce their music: “The artists alone decide what you will hear on their ESP-Disk” was the motto. These records became exemplary documents of the era and the label helped to establish Ra’s reputation as the cosmic messenger of out jazz. This expanded re-issue of an obscure Saturn LP is definitely a welcome addition to the Ra discography.

Como Hacer un Bebe/How to Make a Baby

More time-lapse hilarity via Boing Boing!

Sun Ra Sunday

Roz Croney, Queen of the Limbo: How Low Can You Go? (Dauntless DM 6309)

Recorded at Mastertone Studio, New York City, January or February, 1963.
Released as Dauntless DM 4039 (mono) and 6309 (stereo) in 1963.

While Sun Ra was extensively recording Arkestra rehearsals at the Choreographer’s Workshop and exploring the outer realms of (im)possible music, there was little actual paying work in New York. Fortunately, Ra had developed two important connections over the years: filmmaker/auteur Edward O. Bland and (soon to become) legendary producer Tom Wilson, both of whom had worked with Sonny in Chicago. As soon as Ra found himself stranded in the big city, Bland and Wilson helped him out, resulting in the Savoy LP, The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra (1961). Often working in tandem, Bland and Wilson continued to throw commercial work the Arkestra’s way during this crucial period – like, for instance, this limbo fad cash-in attempt rush-released in 1963.

Upon graduating from Harvard in 1954, Tom Wilson borrowed $900.00 to start the Transition record label which was devoted exclusively to the most progressive jazz. In 1956, Wilson released Cecil Taylor’s first record, Jazz Advance (CD on Blue Note 84462) along with Sun Ra’s first LP under his newly assumed name, Jazz by Sun Ra Vol.1 (later titled Sun Song) (Delmark DD-411). A second volume was also recorded and released as Sound of Joy (Delmark DD-414). As the nineteen-sixties progressed, Wilson eventually abandoned jazz for rock music went on to produce landmark albums by Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, Simon & Garfunkel, The Velvet Underground, Soft Machine and others. Wilson was one of the first and most successful African-American record producers but died tragically young at 47 in 1978.

Edward O. Bland was a radical young Chicago disc jockey and early supporter of Sun Ra who enlisted the Arkestra to participate in a short experimental film entitled, The Cry of Jazz (Atavistic DVD). Bland shrewdly convinced the band to work for free in exchange for whatever publicity the film might generate. The Cry of Jazz premiered at Roosevelt University in early 1959 and remains a crucial document of black cinema. By 1961, Bland had relocated to New York City and was working as a journeyman composer and arranger, sometimes (as here) in association with Tom Wilson.

Honestly, How Low Can You Go? is an example of the kind of imminently disposable, fashion-driven product that would appear to be the antithesis of Ra’s own (mostly unheard) music of the time: it is simply work-for-hire without any artistic pretentions whatsoever. But what is remarkable about the Arkestra’s (uncredited) performance is the complete lack of irony or condescension; it is professional to the point of anonymity. And upon close listening, one can confirm Gilmore’s raspy bass clarinet on “It’s Limbo Time” and Ra’s slinky organ work on “Bossa Nova Limbo” and “Whole Lotta Shaking Going On.” Of course, the limbo originates from a Trinidadian funeral ritual where the dancer moves to the rhythm under a stick held up by two persons without knocking or touching the stick; if successful, the dancer repeats the maneuver again and again with the bar being lowered each time. The symbolism of this triumphant dance of life over death surely appealed to Ra’s sensibilities, even if this LP was ultimately destined for the trend-conscious cocktail parties of the “space-age bachelor pad.” Sadly, little else is known about Roz Croney, Queen of the Limbo, beyond this obscure recording and the limbo conceit is fleshed out to album-length proportions with some truly dreadful material, including a limbo-ized take on “How Much Is that Doggie In The Window?” Needless to say, How Low Can You Go? has never been (and never will be) released on CD and is not really worth seeking out unless you’re a totally committed Ra-fanatic.

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Again in 1963, Wilson and Bland hired the Arkestra for a pop/R&B session backing the (otherwise unknown) singer Richard “Popcorn” Wylie. “Marlene” b/w “Do You Still Care for Me” was released as a 45-RPM single on Epic Records (5-9663). According to Bland’s recollections at the Jazz Institute of Chicago:

I was notified by his office only 24 hours before the session was scheduled to hit. I had to transcribe 4 lead sheets from Wylie (who was musically illiterate) arrange and copy the 4 charts, and contract the musicians.

While I was working with Wylie (who was drunk) trying to transcribe the lead sheets, he vomited on me in the apartment of the Jazz trombonist / arranger / composer Tom McIntosh (who came to additional fame with the Jazztet, James Moody and the Shaft [motion] pictures). [McIntosh (along with Bland and Wilson) was also involved with the infamous Batman & Robin LP in 1966.]

Bland portrays Wylie as a helpless drunkard while Prof. Campbell describes Wylie as a “Sam Cooke wannabe” but the session isn’t quite as bad as all that. “Marlene” is a pleasant mid-tempo soul groove complete with crooning backup singers and Wylie’s own pleading vocals. Gilmore turns in an inimitably pithy solo on bass clarinet during the break making this worth a listen. On the other hand, “Do You Still Care For Me?” is a more pedestrian shuffle with some unremarkable horn parts honking away in the background. Someone (is it Popcorn?) whistles aimlessly at the end. Another curiosity in the discography!

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Finally, another single was recorded in 1962 and eventually released by El Saturn sometime in the mid-sixties. The label of El Saturn 144M reads: “Presenting Little Mack” with “Le Sun Ra: Music Director.” According to Gilmore, Little Mack was an R&B singer who liked the Arkestra and financed this recording session which can be found on The Singles (Evidence ECD 22164). “Tell Her to Come On Home” is a plaintive blues with an unsteady rumba beat. Gilmore and Ra conjure up some cool riffing in support of Little Mack’s quirky but sincere vocals. On the other side, “I’m Making Believe” is an old fashioned torch song full of maudlin emotion foreign to Ra’s usual vibe. Even so, it’s a touching performance with Ra leading the way with some ornate piano, Gilmore filling in orchestrally on saxophone. According to Ra, Little Mack was a virtuosic singer, who would sing in different keys depending on the acoustic properties of the concert hall; but nobody seems to know what happened to him. Too bad.

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It’s hard to imagine that any of these records made much money for Ra or his musicians beyond a minimal payment upon performance. It was perhaps enough to buy some groceries. 1964 would be an especially difficult year with several key band members leaving the Arkestra (if only temporarily) for greener pastures. The Arkestra would continue to perform commercial work here and there through the nineteen-sixties in order to survive. But Sun Ra was also active within the short-lived but crucial Jazz Composers Guild. The Guild, which included Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor among others, mounted a series high profile concerts in New York which planted the seed for the Arkestra’s future. Attorney Bernard Stollman was in the audience in 1964 and he would shortly thereafter sign Ra to his boutique label, ESP-Disk. Suddenly, things were looking up.

Happy Record Store Day!

As excited as a kid on Christmas, I got up this morning and made my way over to my favorite local indie record store, Grimey’s New & Preloved Music, just a few minutes after they opened at 10:00 a.m. -- but already there was a huge line of customers bearing armloads of records snaking through the store! I almost wept! Too bad for me, the Pavement live LP and the Sonic Youth/Beck 7” were completely sold out. Early bird gets the worm and all that, I suppose. I did manage to grab Wilco’s Ashes of American Flags DVD, some of which was recorded here last year at the Ryman Auditorium; we attended that (incredibly awesome) concert and we’re really looking forward to watching this DVD. Wilco rules! I also took advantage of the 10% off sale and picked up some the recent ESP Disk CD reissues along with some other cool stuff. Out back were bands, barbeque, beer and more records. As you can see, it was a beautiful day, the joint was jumping, and everyone was having a grand old time. The staff at Grimey’s are super nice folks who know records and know how to throw a party. But being something of an old fart myself, the crowds actually started to get to me so I split. I spent the rest of the afternoon listening to my new records…which was blissful. They say the CD/LP is dead but it sure didn’t look that way to me today. Happy Record Store Day!

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Myth Science Arkestra:
When Angels Speak of Love (Evidence ECD 22216)

When Angels Speak of Love is one of the very rarest of the already exceedingly rare Saturn LPs. Prof. Campbell estimates that two lots of seventy-five were pressed for a grand total of 150 LPs circulated (p.108). Therefore, this music was virtually unheard by anyone but the most obsessed (and well-heeled) when Evidence released it as part of their final installment of Saturn reissues back in 2000. Recorded in full-blown, down-home Saturn Sound at the Choreographer’s Workshop in 1963, it is one of Ra’s most expansive, downright out-there recordings. Not surprisingly, it was not released until 1966, at the height of the free-jazz Afrocentric radicalism that was, for a time, willing to accept Ra’s most avant garde inclinations. Conceived way ahead of its time, When Angels Speak of Love points the way forward to Heliocentric Worlds and beyond.

John Szwed singles out this album in his biography of Ra, Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra (Pantheon, 1997):

It was considered a bizarre record when it was [released]…made more bizarre by
extreme echo, horns straining for the shrillest notes possible, rhythms layered, their polyhythmic effect exaggerated by massive reverberation (which was abruptly turned off and on). “Next Stop Mars” is the centerpiece of the album, a very long work which opens with a space chant, followed by Allen and Gilmore taking chances on their horns beyond what almost any other musician would dare at that time. Sun Ra played behind them, again relentlessly spinning around a single tonal center with two-handed independence, then rumbling thunderously at the bottom of the keyboard against Boykins’s bass, a clangor made heavier by electronic enhancement. (p. 199)

In the liner notes to this Evidence CD, the ever-astute John Corbett discusses how Tommy Hunter’s fortuitous feedback discovery was as radically prescient as Ra’s music itself:

Ra’s space…was alienated, de-naturalized, his use of echo more in common with
pioneers of experimental electronic music, and he anticipated much later developments in interactivity ranging from dub reggae to the live-electronics and computer improvisation projects of George Lewis, Phil Wachsmann and Evan Parker. At that time, as a recording art, free jazz was still totally ensconced in the naturalizing concept (still really is), and the extreme use of echo on these tracks is a significant indicator of how far Ra was willing to push the sonic envelope (to make a bad resonance joke) in his own, unique electronic jazz maneuvers.

Szwed elaborates further on this aspect of Ra’s genius:

By the 1950s, commercial recording companies had developed a classical style of recording which assured that the recording process itself would be invisible,the machinery of recording being used like a picture window through which an illusion was created of “being there” with the musicians. But Sun Ra began to regularly violate this convention on the Saturn releases by recording live at strange sites, by using feedback, distortion, high delay or reverb, unusual microphone placement, abrupt fades or edits, and any number of other effects or noises which called attention to the recording process. On some recordings you could hear a phone ringing, or someone walking near the microphone. It was a rough style of production, an antistyle, a self-reflexive approach which anticipated both free jazz recording conventions and punk production to come. (p.188)

All of this is wholly correct, even though this is not the first appearance of Hunter’s reverb effect and, with the exception of “Celestial Fantasy” and “Next Stop Mars,” the rest of the album eschews the radical displacements of the echo-machine for a (somewhat more) “naturalistic” recorded space. But even where the echo and reverb effects are absent, this album is swathed with that charmingly de-centered “Saturn Sound” that epitomizes the period. Significantly, both Corbett and Szwed touch on the importance of Ra’s use of new technologies as musical instruments and Ra’s visionary engagement with the record-making process, despite near-zero budgets and ultra-limited distribution. Ra embraced mediation on its own terms and deliberately created sonic objects which transcend the mere representation of some ideal performance. Imbued with a do-it-yourself, hand-made authenticity, El Saturn LPs were works of art unto themselves.

“Celestial Fantasy” opens the album with gentle gongs and cymbals to introduce Walter Miller’s jarring, high-register trumpet squeals. Marshall Allen then commences with a densely echoing, wildly inventive oboe peroration while Boykins enters with plucked bass throbs. After Allen concludes his “fantasy,” Miller resumes his high-wire screeching before dropping down to the mellowest, lowest-registers to spar with the increasingly busy bass and drums, all of them echo-echo-echoing in the lushly reverberant space. Miller is sadly underrated; yet he was such a thoughtful and thoroughly “complete” trumpeter, putting him in the category of a very select few. Anyway, the instruments drift off to a pregnant moment of echoing near-silence before Miller and Allen return for further exploration of their highest tessituras to end. This is a very intense beginning to a very intense album! Thankfully, the next piece, “The Idea of it All,” is another patented Ra original: a crazy, atonal bebop number driven by the madly swinging Clifford Jarvis on drums and which provides for yet another killer Gilmore solo on tenor saxophone. What more needs to be said?

Things take a (re)turn for the strange on “Ecstasy of Being.” Opening with a meditation on the paradiddles of marching drums, Jarvis leads the Arkestra’s parade of joyously honking carryings-on. After a while, the instruments drop out to allow for a shift to more subtle, sensuous rhythms -- an erotic dance between bass and percussion. The horns return with more ecstatic wailing until about the nine minute mark when Ra signals a complexly-voiced, fortissimo “space chord” to end the piece. It would perhaps be too easy to interpret this piece as: ecstasy = being at war and being in love. Nonetheless, it is interesting to ponder the wealth of symbolism in Ra’s oeuvre.

“When Angels Speak of Love” is a quirky, slow-tempo ballad featuring Pat Patrick’s most romantic bari-sax crooning over Boykins’s half-time bass. Miller takes a graceful turn on trumpet, including some precariously high, yet perfectly pitched notes. Meanwhile, Ra’s piano meanders while click-clackety percussion outlines a shaky beat. Gilmore and Robert Cummings (on bass clarinet) take brief, somewhat tentative solos until Miller and Patrick return to restate the minimalist, dissonant theme. The album closes with the epic “Next Stop Mars.” At almost eighteen minutes, this is by far the longest recording of the Choreographer’s Workshop period. It is, as Szwed describes, full of extended horn techniques producing “the shrillest notes possible” with Ra “relentlessly spinning around a single tonal center with two-handed independence, then rumbling thunderously at the bottom of the keyboard.” Here and there, ticking and tapping percussion rise and fall but the texture is chamber-like: piano, bass and horns. As Gilmore, Allen and Davis shriek and honk, Robert Cummings weaves winding threads of virtuosic bass clarinet while Walter Miller punches holes in space and glides effortlessly on his silvery trumpet. Ra’s piano is uncharacteristically voluble and aggressive. At first listen, the piece appears to be an anarchic free-for-all -- but that is hardly the case. As Ra explains in the liner notes, “I can write something so chaotic you would say you know it’s not written. But the reason it’s chaotic is because it’s written to be. It’s further out than anything they would be doing if they were just improvising.”

In fact, there is a two-page score entitled, “When Angels Speak of Love,” deposited in the Library of Congress that contains sketches for the title track, “Next Stop Mars” and “Ecstasy of Being.” They are, alas, but sketches – perhaps hasty transcriptions at that – and they tell us little about the final result as evidenced by the recording, although they are full of curious details (e.g. the cryptic instruction to “play celestially”). Even so, the presence of such a manuscript is indicative of Ra’s fierce control over the musical material, despite its surface aural appearance. Even though his music sometimes sounded “free,” it was not about freedom, it was about discipline.

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This concludes our examination of the known Choreographer’s Workshop recordings. In sequence, these albums include: Bad & Beautiful, Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow, Secrets of the Sun, Out There a Minute, "A Blue One (single), What’s New/The Invisible Shield, and When Sun Comes Out. After When Angels Speak of Love, Ra recorded Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy and, finally, Other Planes of There. We will continue moving forward chronologically up through Heliocentric Worlds and on into The Magic City in the coming weeks. But first we’ll take a listen to some other super-obscure recordings Ra and the Arkestra made as unlikely sidemen in 1962-1963. Until then, here’s a poem by Sun Ra found in the liner notes to When Angels Speak of Love:

WHEN ANGELS SPEAK

When angels speak
They speak of cosmic waves of sound
Wavelength infinity
Always touching planets
In opposition outward bound

When angels speak
They speak on wavelength infinity
Beam cosmos
Synchronizing the rays of darkness
Into visible being
Blackout!
Dark Living Myth-world of being

NYC 4/5/09: Crosstown and Back

NYC 4/4/09: Union Square

NYC 4/4/09: Seaport to Chinatown

NYC 4/4/09: Staten Island Ferry

NYC 4/3/09: Frank Lloyd Wright Room

NYC 4/3/09: Temple of Dendur

NYC 4/3/09: More Twombly

NYC 4/3/09: Metropolitan Museum of Art

NYC 4/2/09: Monet & Twombly + Le Refuge

NYC 4/2/09: East 87th Street to MOMA

NYC 4/1/09: Guggenheim Museum/Franklin Hotel

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Myth Science Arkestra: When Sun Comes Out (Evidence ECD 22068)

Recorded at the Choreographer’s Workshop, NYC, 1962-1963
Originally released as El Saturn 2066 (1963)

When Sun Comes Out is truly a landmark record in Ra’s discography: it was the first New York recording to be released on Ra’s own El Saturn label and it contains some of Tommy Hunter’s first stereo recordings made at the Choreographer’s Workshop – quite technologically advanced accomplishments for a shoestring operation in 1963. Some years later, Sun Ra deposited a manuscript with the Library of Congress entitled, “When Sun Comes Out,” which contains a fairly detailed score for most the tracks on the album assembled into a kind of suite. Clearly, Ra considered this an important work – although it is impossible to tell from the score whether it was produced before or after the recording. As with many aspects of Sun Ra’s work, this document poses at least as many questions as it answers.

“Circe” opens the album with ominous, irregular strikes of a gong – loud and soft, ringing and choked, fast and slow. Bells and hand drums enter with a stuttering rhythm while a mysterious singer named Theda Barbara vocalizes wordlessly (and somewhat melodramatically) with a big, warbling vibrato. The mostly pentatonic melody is fully notated in the score with alternating measures of 5/4 and 9/4 over the gong’s droning G. Subsequently, the bells, gong, and hand drums coalesce into a steady rhythm before suddenly fading out. “The Nile” sets out with gently rolling percussion with Ra and Boykins engaging contrasting three-note ostinato patterns to support a beautiful, Arabic-sounding flute melody scored for Marshall Allen. Allen takes considerable liberties with the melody as it goes along, but always hits specified targets, indicating that the score might predate the recording. “Brazilian Sun” features suitably Latin-sounding hand drums and claves with Boykins holding down a circular riff on bass. Ra stabs out parallel chords to spell out a tense, unresolved melody. The sunny percussion contrasts with the tonally shiftless piano to create a definite atmospheric tension – a bit of spiritual unease despoiling the fantasy of tropical paradise perhaps?

The version of “We Travel the Spaceways” heard here is a bit more aggressive than on the eponymous LP (found on Evidence ECD 22038) – and it is also recorded in stereo. Teddy Nance and Bernard Pettaway sit in on trombones, giving the tune a darker, more menacing tone. After the opening space chant, the increasingly dissonant interplay between Gilmore’s energetic tenor solo and Ra’s percussive piano gives this rendition a decidedly avant garde feel. Ra slides in some dreamy celeste during the vocal sections, demonstrating his uniquely orchestral approach to keyboard accompaniment. “Calling Planet Earth” benefits as well from the more spacious stereo recording. A fully notated vocal ensemble urgently intones the title until Pat Patrick enters with some coruscating baritone saxophone which is reinforced by Ra’s furious two-handed piano attack. Adding to the tumultuous assault, both Lex Humphries and John Gilmore are pounding away on drums. Yes, John Gilmore on trap drums! And Ra sounds more like Cecil Taylor than Cecil himself did in 1963! This is some wild stuff!

The other stereo recording is “Dancing Shadows,” cut at the same session that yielded several tracks on The Invisible Shield. It is a classic Ra-styled atonal bebop number full of strident tritones and breathtakingly wide interval leaps, all driven hard by Clifford Jarvis’s frenetic drumming. Ra spins a mesmerizing piano solo before giving way to yet another incredible Gilmore solo on tenor sax. Walter Miller again demonstrates his prodigious technique with a bristling, angular trumpet solo before the reprise. (Incidentally, the melody for “Dancing Shadows” is contained within the otherwise ultra-enigmatic “Twenty-First Century” suite in the Library of Congress manuscripts.) “The Rainmaker” is more dizzying, harmonically restless swing but with more polyphonic riffing throughout. Ra peals off another excellent piano solo and Jarvis is at his Jarviest, bass drum pumping away maniacally. Gilmore enters with yet another patented genius tenor sax solo culminating in hair-raising, multiphonic blasts at the end. Holy crap!

“When Sun Comes Out” replaces Jarvis with the comparatively more laconic Lex Humphries, who is bolstered with some busy hand percussion by the rest of the Arkestra. Ra plays slippery, chromatically descending fourths atop an oscillating, two-note bass which is doubled by Boykins. Marshall Allen and Danny Davis proceed to dance and duel on wailing alto saxophones with some pinched, emphatic Walter Miller trumpet interjected here and there. Meanwhile, the rhythm section explores a subtly shifting harmonic landscape. Interestingly, the manuscript barely outlines the opening piano figures which appear to be jumping off points for improvisation. Again, this makes me think that the score is something more than a transcription and possibly predates the recording. Who knows?

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When working with the master tape to prepare this CD in 1993, Evidence discovered an unreleased track running backwards in an unused stereo channel. On hearing the track for the first time in thirty years, John Gilmore gave it the title “Dimensions in Time” and it appears here as a bonus track. Echoing drums and tapping glass bottles underpin Gilmore’s seductively meandering bass clarinet. His tone is dark, rich and gorgeous as he weaves delightful melodies around the pitter-pattering percussion. Unfortunately, just as he reaches a climax, the track suddenly ends. As it turns out, the second part of this piece can be found on the 1974 Saturn LP entitled Space Probe (Saturn 14200A/142000B) (confusingly, some copies were titled A Tonal View of Times Tomorrow Vol.1). Here entitled, “Primitive,” the track cuts in exactly where “Dimensions in Time” ends, with the last few notes of Gilmore’s bass clarinet statement after which the percussion vamp continues for another couple minutes before fading out. As discrete fragments, these two pieces are a bit frustrating to listen to (despite Gilmore brilliant playing); someday I’d like to digitally rejoin these tracks to hear the complete piece in all its original glory.

Space Probe also includes another Choreographer’s Workshop recording from this period curiously titled, “The Conversion of J.P.” Plopping drums create a feel similar to “The Nile” with Marshall Allen’s expansive flute melody rising and falling amidst long spells of trance-inducing percussion. Then, at about the eight-minute mark, Ra enters with some incongruously gospel-ish piano chords. I guess this is the conversion happening! Ra then moves through a whole hymnal’s worth of plain, protestant harmonies before a final, insistently repeating cadence. Hallelujah! Now, who exactly is J.P? And how are we to take all this apparent proselytizing given Ra’s complicated, if not downright contentious relationship with the Christian church? Indeed, the tension between the pagan percussion/Pan-flute and the holy-rolling piano never quite comfortably resolves. Another curious thing about this track is that, at almost fourteen minutes, it is by far the longest stretch of continuous recorded music from this era. It makes me wonder if “When Sun Comes Out” was truly conceived and recorded as an extended suite (as in the manuscript), with only selected excerpts edited out for release on LP. Just another mystery of Mr. Ra to be infinitely pondered. Incidentally, the B-Side of Space Probe contains an eighteen-minute Moog freakout from 1970 a la My Brother the Wind Vol.2 -- an odd pairing, to say the least!

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The Evidence CD of When Sun Comes Out also contains Fate in a Pleasant Mood (El Saturn 202) recorded in Chicago late-1960 to early-1961. I will examine it separately on another Sun Ra Sunday.

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Thanks once again to the indefatigable Sam Byrd for his help with this post!

Record Store Day 2009

Record Store Day is Saturday, April 18, 2009. Like last year, I plan to head over to Nashville’s finest independent record store, Grimey’s New & Pre-Loved Music, and celebrate the occasion. This year, a huge number of records are being released especially for this event and will be available only at select participating indie record shops. Some of the limited edition goodies include a previously unreleased live Pavement LP recorded in 1988, a Sonic Youth/Beck split single, a Bob Dylan seven-inch featuring two live tracks recorded at Bonnaroo, a reissue of GBV’s Hold On Hope EP with three bonus tracks, and a live Tom Waits seven-inch. That’s just a taste of what’s in store. Grimey’s will also be hosting live music all day along with the Yazoo beer truck. Can’t wait!

Fox in the Yard

When I got home from work today, I saw a red fox run across our yard. Somehow that seems auspicious! Beautiful animal!

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra: What’s New (side A) (Saturn 539)

The discographical murkiness continues with this 1975 LP containing four swinging Choreographer’s Workshop recordings from 1962 on the A-side and a contemporaneous concert fragment on side B. Confusingly, later pressings substitute side A of The Invisible Shield for the B-side (see below). In any case, the kind of hot jazz found here probably represents a taste of the Arkestra’s working-gig repertoire during the lean early years in New York. Of course, Ra came out of the big-band tradition of the 1930s and 40s and had vast experience arranging standards and show tunes for various ensembles and his flair for instrumental color (check out Marshall Allen’s flute!) and ornamental counterpoint are much in evidence on the title track -- even if the end result comes across as a mere blowing session. “What’s New” was, after all, a staple of the Arkestra’s live sets throughout their career.

Curiously, two original compositions by Arkestra newcomers Al Evans and Calvin Newborn were also recorded at this Choreographer’s Workshop rehearsal. Newborn’s “Wanderlust” is a rather nondescript jazz waltz but it elicits strong solos by John Gilmore on tenor saxophone, Al Evans on flugelhorn, Danny Davis on alto sax. The composer himself steps out with an aggressively electric guitar solo – a rarely heard timbre in the Arkestra’s recorded history. Ra then builds a solo around distant chordal substitutions before the head returns for the close. Evans brings out the funky side of the Arkestra with his honky-tonk strut aptly entitled “Jukin’.” Evans’s tone is warm and bluesy, while Newborn offers at times some near-psychedelic, noise-infused comping beneath the ever-riffing horns. These two tracks are perhaps a bit lightweight, but still a lot of fun. Evans continued his association with the Arkestra off and on throughout the 70s and 80s while Newborn moved on to moderate success in the blues world.

The Arkestra drops down to a quartet on the hoary old chestnut, “Autumn in New York.” But don’t be fooled! After a lushly romantic opening piano statement, Gilmore plays one of the most breathtakingly heart-rending solos of his long, brilliant career! He starts out by teasing the melancholy melody with spacious, wide-open phrasing, slowly building to register-spanning exclamations, delicate filigrees, and pathos-filled one and two-note worryings. Every note is just exactly the right note at the right place and at the right time. As if awestruck by the sheer beauty of Gilmore’s playing, the band drops out during the second chorus, leaving him to blow an acappella cadenza that miraculously holds the thread of the tune while overflowing with prodigious, risky invention. Suddenly, Ra enters with an (almost) incongruous double-tempo section that slows down just in time for Gilmore to re-state the theme with the kind of stately grace and tender emotion that marked his opening choruses. This track demonstrates that, despite his (well-deserved) reputation as an altissimo-fueled avant-garde noisemaker, John Gilmore was truly one of the great post-bop saxophonists of all time. This version of an over-familiar standard has to be heard to be believed. Incredible!

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Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Research Arkestra: The Invisible Shield (side A) (Saturn 529)

Now things get even more confusing. This LP was originally released in 1974 with six 1962-63 Choreographer’s Workshop recordings on the A-side backed with some stray cuts from the late sixties and early seventies on the B-side. It has also been variously titled A Tonal View of Times Tomorrow, Vol. 2, Janus, and Satellites are Outerspace. As mentioned above, these tracks also appeared as the B-Side on most copies of What’s New (which is really where they belong given their similarly straight-ahead feel). Some (but not all) of these tracks were sold to Black Lion in 1971, but never issued. Finally, in 2000, some (but, bafflingly, not all) of those tracks were officially released on Standards (1201 Music 90192). Like I said: very confusing! It certainly would have been nice if all of these 1962-63 tracks were gathered in one place, but so it goes in Sun Ra’s Omniverse. That said, the Standards CD does boast superior sound quality and includes a rare 1955 home recording of Ra duetting with bassist Wilbur Ware on “Can This Be Love” and is therefore (grudgingly) recommended.

Anyway, “State Street” is a sprightly Ra original that is omitted from Standards on the grounds that it is, well, not a “standard.” Too bad since it’s a barn-burning big band outing with a full-blown brass section consisting of the aforementioned Al Evans on flugelhorn, Ra’s childhood friend Walter Miller on trumpet, and Ali Hassan on trombone. Michael White adds a gypsy element with some keening violin while the virtuoso drumming of Clifford Jarvis drives the Arkestra with an infectious, toe-tapping groove. The saxophones and brass exchange complex, interlocking lines at the head and riff away happily during the string of brief solos, all of which culminates in a brilliant flourish by baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick before the final coda.

“Sometimes I’m Happy,” finds the Arkestra reduced to a quartet of Ra, Gilmore, Boykins, and the more subdued Lex Humphries on drums. This lightly swinging number is the perfect vehicle for another eloquent statement by Gilmore, punctuated by Ra’s roiling piano and Boykins’s rock-solid bass. Jarvis and Miller then return for the remaining tracks. Two takes of “Time After Time” exist, but take one is inexplicably omitted on Standards. This familiar tune is taken at a briskly bebop-ish pace and showcases Miller’s immaculate technique and burnished tone atop Jarvis’s smooth yet hard-driving drums. On take two, Miller takes more chances, splitting tones into multi-phonics and allowing for more open, silent spaces between his phrases. “Easy to Love” is another hard bop vehicle for Gilmore with Jarvis’s hyperactive bass drum and overlapping polyrhythms relentlessly propelling the music forward. Boykins interjects with some sure-footed walking bass between Gilmore’s increasingly abstracted choruses until, finally, Ra enters with the trumpet to (somewhat raggedly) repeat the theme and end.

“Keep Your Sunny Side Up” is another uptempo number with Jarvis and Boykins swinging like mad and Gilmore once again demonstrating his prowess as a post-bop genius. Yes, it’s another brilliant Gilmore solo! But Miller reveals in one brief chorus what a formidable trumpet player he really was and how sympathetic he was to Sun Ra’s vision – especially as it applied to the living tradition and the so-called mainstream. While economic realities prevented Miller from committing full time to the Arkestra, he remained an always welcome visitor throughout their existence. Unfortunately, Ra’s brass sections would remain in flux during these early New York years.

Along with What’s New, this material reveals a part of the Arkestra’s history that was long concealed by the vagaries of the Saturn enterprise (not to mention a genuine desire to promote Ra’s original music over “standards”). Beyond the stellar musicianship on display, these tracks showcase Ra’s bountiful gifts as an arranger and his Herculean work ethic. While the times were penurious, Ra continued to compose, rehearse and record the Arkestra, and found paying work where he could. Arranging and playing standards was (and still is) the lingua franca of jazz and Sun Ra was a master. But he could also write a tune like “State Street” that sounded as if it had been composed during the golden age of the big bands. This music may not be as exhilaratingly modern and original as, say, Secrets of the Sun or Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, but it is ebullient and supremely well-crafted.

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Special thanks once again to Sam Byrd for his help with this post!

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Photograph of the Arkestra in rehearsal at the Choreographer’s Workshop by Tommy Hunter (from Szwed). Left to right: Pat Patrick, Sun Ra, Marshall Allen, John Gilmore, and Ronnie Boykins.