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.

John Cage on "I've Got a Secret" 1960

Here is a wonderful clip of John Cage performing “Water Walk” in January 1960 on the popular CBS television show, “I’ve Got a Secret.”

Cage is utterly charming and witty:

Host: Will you tell us quite seriously whether or not you consider what we’re about to hear music? No tongue in cheek, but seriously.

Cage: No, perfectly seriously, I consider music the production of sounds and since in the piece which you will hear I produce sounds, I’d call it music.

[...]

Host: Mr. Cage, these are nice people, but some of them are going to laugh. Is that
alright?

Cage: Of course. I consider laughter preferable to tears.

Via WFMU.

Sun Ra Sunday

The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra (2nd edition)
By Robert L. Campbell & Christopher Trent
Cadence Jazz Books (ISBN: 1-881993-35-3)

This is an example of “amateur” scholarship in the best sense of the word. In an attempt to get a handle on Ra’s vast (and vastly confusing) discography, Clemson psychology professor (and Sun Ra fan) Robert L. Campbell began compiling a list of all known recordings, building upon the work of Hartmut Geerken and Dr. Tilman Stahl in the 1980s. In 1992, Prof. Campbell shared his findings with the Saturn internet list-serv and the small but resourceful cyber-community of Sun Ra fans contributed a wealth of new information. Sun Ra was notoriously vague about dates and personnel and many Saturn LPs were issued in blank or hand-scrawled sleeves containing zero information – not even a title! Therefore, intensive forensic analysis was required to even attempt to ascertain essential discographical details. The end result of this communitarian effort was the publication of the first edition of The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra in 1994. Subsequently, further new discoveries were made and, with the help of co-author and fellow Ra-fanatic, Christopher Trent, this second, massively enlarged edition was published by Cadence Jazz Books in 2000.

Campbell and Trent strive to document not only all of Sun Ra’s officially released recordings, both as a sideman and a leader, but also all known live performances, unissued recordings, and rumored sessions. They also attempt to trace the Ra’s footsteps around the globe where recordings are unknown. Posthumous performances by the Marshall Allen-led Arkestra up through 1998 are also included. Did I mention the discography is massive? The first edition included 501 items across 218 pages while the second edition lists 788 items and totals 847 pages, including several handily cross-referenced indexes. The 6” x 8” paperbound book weighs in at over three pounds!

It is a shame, however, that such a thick, heavy tome is so poorly bound. The signatures have been brutally chopped off and the three-inch-thick text block is merely glued to a flimsy cardboard cover. With any prolonged use, the spine will surely fail and pages will begin to fall out. A somewhat expensive purchase, I would have preferred that this monumental reference work had been more sturdily constructed. Alas, The Earthly Recordings is a labor of love for a vanishingly small, specialized audience and no doubt a library bound edition would cost upwards of $100.00. Nevertheless, The Earthly Recordings is an essential resource for the serious Sun Ra fan. Now almost a decade out of date, perhaps a hardbound, thousand-page third edition will be forthcoming.

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Another fabulous resource (that I forgot I even had) is Sun Ra Scores: The Library of Congress Endowment, another amazing bit of scholarship compiled by ethnomusicologist James Wolf. From the years 1956 to 1973, Ra deposited a couple hundred pages of sheet music to the Library of Congress for copyright purposes and Wolf managed to retrieve and photocopy the collection during the mid-1990s. Subsequently, the collection was made available to members of the Saturn internet community for a nominal copying fee. Predictably, most of the “scores” contain only the barest information: a melody, lyrics, and perhaps some chord symbols. However, as I was flipping through them today, I was surprised to find meticulously detailed scores for “And Otherness” and “Moon Dance,” two seemingly loosely structured pieces from Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy. These appear to be not mere transcriptions, but fully realized compositions with additional elements not found on the record. Fascinating!

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With these tools at hand, we will continue the examination of the Choreographer’s Workshop recordings next week (I hope).

More Like This, Please

Bernie Madoff's new home.

Sun Ra Sunday

My work life is seriously impinging on my home life these days, so my examination of the Choreographer’s Workshop recordings will have to be put off this week. In the meantime, here’s some cool silent footage (with dubbed music) of Sun Ra and the Arkestra in Egypt and Italy circa. 1971:

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Arkestra Featuring Pat Patrick: “A Blue One” / “Orbitration in Blue” (Saturn SRA-999)

Recorded at the Choreographer’s Workshop, New York City, early-1962.
Originally released late-1964.

This super-obscure seven-inch 45-RPM single was discovered too late to appear on Evidence’s The Singles (ECD 22164) (1996) and that’s too bad because it’s a stunner and it remains sadly out of print. Note that Arkestra stalwart, Pat Patrick receives a rare co-billing on the disc’s label; well, his spectacular baritone saxophone playing on these two Choreographer’s Workshop tracks suitably justifies the honorific.

Laurdine “Pat” Patrick was born November 23, 1929 in East Moline, Illinois and was the first of several graduates of Captain Walter Dyett’s DuSable High School who would fall in with Sun Ra in Chicago after around 1950. (For more information on Captain Dyett, see Szwed, pp.87-89, 94 and George E. Lews, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (Chicago, 2008).) Ra biographer John Szwed aptly sums up the importance Ra’s early association with the youthful Pat Patrick:

Pat Patrick [was] a baritone saxophonist of enormous resources, a prodigy; a
humorous but highly organized person, whose playing reflected both qualities: “He’d be playing and suddenly this note would come from nowhere, and sound wrong,” said bassoonist James Jacson, who played with Sonny many years later; “but as he went on you’d see how it was deceptive…it fit perfectly.” […] Patrick was something special, a musician of the right spirit, intelligent, honest, serious. He saw to it that Sonny was protected, and was quick to help any other members of the band in trouble. Patrick was the best musician Sonny ever had in any of his bands. He got the point of ideas and music immediately (“You got it down, Pat,” Sonny always said). He had great hopes for him, and felt that with Pat he had the basis for a band capable of executing the music he had been working on for over ten years (pp. 87-88).

Patrick was a charter member of Sun Ra’s Space Trio, the Arkestra’s precursor, and a 1951 home recording entitled, “Treasure Hunt,” documents Patrick’s already full-bodied sound and smooth, thoughtful invention. Patrick would remain committed to Sun Ra until the end of his life in 1991, but he also worked with such luminaries as Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Mongo Santamaria, with whom he co-wrote the 1963 hit, “Yeh Yeh.”

The A-side of this little gem, “A Blue One,” is a rollicking mid-tempo Ra blues, with a simple pssh-tap-bang rhythm and stolid walking bass that sets up a subtly killing groove. Ra takes a brief turn on the piano before Patrick enters with a burbling bari-sax solo that ranges freely from the resonant growls of the lowest registers to high-register wails and cries, with astonishingly fleet passagework full of widely spaced intervals and intricate legato runs. Boykins takes the lead with some funky, stop-start bass before fading out. This should have been a hit! The B-side, “Orbitration in Blue,” is a bluesy, drummer-less ballad featuring another wild excursion on bari-sax. Incongruously opening with some honking low notes, Patrick’s playing is simultaneously suave and smooth and rough and edgy. At about 1:44, he blasts out one of those seemingly “wrong” notes that Jacson mentions, full of buzzing squeaks and harmonics that somehow manages to resolve itself beautifully as the piano and bass navigate the lush chord changes. Patrick concludes his solo with a flourish and the track quickly fades out. Far out!

Pat Patrick once said, “Sun Ra was another kind of being. He was educational, he helped you to grow and develop. He was a black self-help organization run on a shoe-string…If he could’ve had the resources, the planet would be a better place. That’s all he’s done: tried to make life better” (quoted in Szwed, p. 89). This single is brimming with high-spirited and uplifting swing and inspired improvisation. Listening to it does make the planet a better place -- for a few minutes anyway.

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Pat Patrick is also the father of Massachusetts’ Governor, Deval Patrick. The Governor discusses the complicated relationship with his largely absent father in this Boston Globe article from March, 2007:



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Big thanks again to Sam Byrd for his assistance with this post!

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Photo of Pat Patrick, 1958, from The Cry of Jazz. (See From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra: The Chicago Years.)

Hillbilly Comics (Charlton, 1955)

As a quasi-Yankee who deliberately migrated south of the Mason-Dixon Line, I am sensitive to the stereotype of Southerners that still persists – perhaps deservedly.

Be that as it may, this particular wordless strip by Art Gates scanned and posted at Again With the Comics is brilliant. As a commenter remarked, “Hank the Hermit” is really a Taoist.

Via Boing Boing.

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Arkestra: Out There a Minute (Restless/Blast First CD 71427)

Back in the early 1980s, when I was coming of age, hanging out with other weirdo musicians at the New England Conservatory, and discovering Sun Ra’s music for the first time, Ra’s records were extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find even in a big city like Boston. I managed to snag a couple of Saturn LPs while working at Strawberry’s Records circa. 1984 but they were totally unlabeled, extremely poor pressings, and contained a mish-mash of material recorded at various times and places. Or at least that’s how I remember them since I have no idea what the titles were; sadly, I later sold them in a fit of self-induced poverty and poor judgment. As the CD era dawned, contemporaneous recordings were issued on foreign labels like Black Saint (Italy), DIW (Japan), and Leo (France) while crummy-sounding bootlegs of the classic ESP recordings were also floating around the underground record shops. But for the most part Sun Ra’s vast body of work was shrouded in mystery. When the U.S. major label A&M released the crisply produced Blue Delight in 1988, Ra was suddenly something of a commodity and a steady stream of archival material began to flow in the 1990s.

In today’s instantaneous-information and media-saturated age, it might be difficult to imagine what a revelation it was when Out There a Minute appeared in 1989. Billed as “Sun Ra’s personal selection of rare Arkestra recordings from the late 1960s,” this CD allowed a glimpse into the darkest recesses of Ra’s most obscure period. But in typical Saturnal fashion, the packaging was devoid of liner notes beyond some cryptic Ra poetry leaving any definitive information as to dates and personnel merely inferred or totally unknown. That is until the efforts of Prof. Robert L. Campbell to compile a definitive Sun Ra discography began to circulate on the nascent internet. Thanks to Prof. Campbell (and the small but avid cyber-community of Ra fanatics), one could in the coming years finally piece together the murky history of Sun Ra’s Arkestra and gain an understanding of the material that appears on Out There a Minute. The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra was subsequently published by Cadence Jazz Books in 1994 and a greatly enlarged second edition (which I still need to purchase) was published in 2000.

So, it turns out that Out There a Minute contains several tracks that were later issued on CD in their proper album context on Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow, When Angels Speak of Love (Evidence ECD 22216), and Night of the Purple Moon (Atavistic ALP 264) along with two tracks from the still-out-of-print Continuation LP from 1968. I will not consider any of these tracks here except to say that Atavistic needs to reissue Continuation pronto. The remainder of the CD consists of never released recordings, some of which derive from the Choreographer’s Workshop era and therefore fits chronologically into our discussion of these crucial early/mid-sixties sessions.

“Somewhere in Space,” “Dark Clouds with Silver Linings,” and “Journey Outward” were all recorded in 1962 and demonstrate Ra’s evolution from the more swing-based traditionalism of the Chicago era to the experimental, avant-garde music that first appeared on Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow and was perfected on Secrets of the Sun. “Somewhere in Space” is a lumbering two-chord march featuring Art Jenkins on “space voice,” actually wordless, improvisatory singing through an inverted ram’s horn (see Szwed pp.192-193 for the whole story). After a while, the horns enter with a simple, but affecting batch of riffs before each picking up small percussion instruments in support of a string of rather meandering solos: Pat Patrick on baritone saxophone, John Gilmore on tenor, Marshall Allen on flute. “Dark Clouds With Silver Linings” is a more conventional Ra original with a mid-tempo blues structure but with some typically unexpected harmonic twists. Gilmore states the melody and his tenor solos glide effortlessly through the weirdly bop-ish changes. Meanwhile, Ra explores some interesting two-handed counterpoint along with his stabbed comping. The ensemble sounds a little unsure of itself when it enters with the restatement of the theme, which yields some mild inadvertent dissonance before the close. “Journey Outwards” appears to be another early example of the conducted improvisations that would characterize this period’s most important work. It opens with Gilmore on mellifluous bass clarinet over softly mumbling drums. Then Gilmore drops out as the percussion builds into a polyrhythmic African groove. Al Evans enters with some mellow, richly melodic flugelhorn statements and Ra joins in with some angular piano figures before fading out. Very nice.

The title track, “Out There a Minute,” remains somewhat of a discographical mystery. According to Prof. Campbell, it could have been recorded at any time between 1962 and 1964, but to my ears it sounds very similar to the hissy, distant quality and subtly swinging combo feel of 1961’s Bad & Beautiful. In any event, it’s another patented off-kilter blues with some slippery piano work from Ra and a spirited Patrick solo on baritone saxophone. “Other Worlds” jumps ahead to the Magic City (Evidence ECD 22069) sessions of spring 1965, with a larger Arkestra and more aggressively avant-garde approach, but probably not recorded at the Choreographer’s Workshop (for one thing, it’s in stereo). Ra plays a quietly intense introduction on simultaneous piano and bell-like celeste before the Arkestra bursts in with a hard-driving atonal workout. Throughout the piece, Ra’s piano attack is every bit as ferocious as Cecil Taylor’s and the entire 11-piece Arkestra blows hot and heavy, tossing lines around with seemingly wild abandon. But repeated listens reveal a tightly controlled compositional integrity that packs the whollop of John Coltrane’s “Ascension” into a mere four minutes and forty-eight seconds. Incredible stuff. “Jazz and Romantic Sounds” probably dates from about 1969 given Ra’s electronic organ. Also, Gilmore is notably absent, but Marshall Allen and Danny Davis duke it out on alto saxophones while Ra conjures up the “space-age barbeque music” vibe similar to My Brother the Wind Vol. 2.

These never-before-released tracks make Out There a Minute a must-have proposition for the hardcore Sun Ra fan while the whole disc is full of prime cuts and a suitable introduction for the novice. Sadly, the CD is now out print although its widespread distribution means it’s readily available in the secondary market and well worth the effort to track it down. Essential.

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Big thank you to Sam Byrd for helping me sort this stuff out!

Snail's Pace

Here's some more time-lapse photography. This time, it's French snails.

He writes: Every evening, after my automatic water system stops, all the snails who where hidden behind flowers go out and go on the grass to make parties, eating and drinking !

It really does give a new perspective!


Snails Go west ! Funny TimeLapse from http://vimeo.com/timelapsefr on Vimeo.

Via Boing Boing.

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Myth Science Arkestra: Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow (Evidence ECD 22036) (1992)

Recorded at the Choreographer’s Workshop, NYC, 1961-1962.
Originally released as Saturn 9956 (1965).

Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow tacks on two leftover tracks from 1961’s Bad & Beautiful recording session but mostly consists of a 1962 rehearsal recorded in the basement of the Choreographer’s Workshop where there was a good piano and better acoustics. The sound quality is notably improved even if the source tape for this CD is significantly degraded. More importantly, Ra’s music is clearly moving in a new, exciting direction. Drummer/recordist Tommy Hunter had been recording rehearsals on his Apex reel-to-reel and accidentally discovered the feedback/echo effect that appears here for the first time. So while Bad & Beautiful was a somewhat traditional jazz combo album full of show tunes and semi-conventional Ra originals, Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow lives up to its title, moving forward into the kind of experimental avant garde music that would cement Ra’s reputation in the 1960s and 70s while also retaining a connection to the living tradition that would continue to center the Arkestra’s aesthetic throughout its career. To paraphrase Michael Shore’s comment in the liner notes to this Evidence CD, if Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy is a Rosetta Stone, then Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow is Ra beginning to carve it in earnest.

“Cluster of Galaxies” is a brief but portentous opening with its spacey “thunder drums,” “sun harp,” and “spiral percussion gong” all drenched in thick cosmic echo and reverb. Afro-psychedelia starts right here – in 1962! P-Funk mastermind George Clinton once remarked, “[Sun Ra] was definitely out to lunch – the same place I eat at!” (quoted in Szwed, p. 264). Shifting gears, the next track is another remake of “Ankh” which originally appeared in a more florid arrangement in 1956 on the Delmark LP, Sound of Joy and more recently on Bad & Beautiful. This composition was obviously important to Ra and the various renditions are fascinatingly diverse. Here, baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick shares solo space with a rare appearance by Ali Hassan on trombone. The mood is brighter, less ominous than usual with some funky gospel handclaps supporting the lumbering riffs. “Solar Drums” is another brief space-out featuring echoing drums, small percussion, bells and faintly tinkling piano. The hissing feed back ebbs and flows across the sonic landscape, sometimes threatening to overwhelm everything until Tommy Hunter suddenly turns a knob, bringing things back into focus.

The next two tracks appear to be Ra’s earliest experiments with a new kind of form: loosely structured, non-idiomatic, conducted improvisation. This is a form that Ra would expand and perfect as the decade proceeded, resulting in such masterpieces as Other Planes of There and The Magic City (Evidence ECD 22069). With its total absence of drums, atonal piano, and knotty contrapuntal horn lines, “The Outer Heavens” sounds more like contemporary classical chamber music than big band jazz and points the way to the later music of the AACM and Anthony Braxton. In contrast, a barrage of ceremonial drums and percussion dominates “Infinity of the Universe” with Ra agitatedly rumbling around in the piano’s lowest registers. Michael Shore points out in the liner notes that: “his repeated bass-clef piano runs mark the first appearance of what would, in a few years, turn into the launch pad for one of his greatest pieces, ‘The Shadow World.’” I think that’s correct and a fascinating insight into Ra’s working methods. Towards the end, the horns enter with fleeting and plaintive cries over the increasingly pounding percussion before the track quickly fades to silence.

The album closes with the two orphaned tracks from the Bad & Beautiful sessions and a return to its cool, swinging combo mode. “Lights on a Satellite” was originally recorded in Chicago in 1960 but unreleased until 1965 on Fate in a Pleasant Mood (Evidence ECD 22068). The version here eschews the ornamental flute obbligato and becomes a soulful ballad vehicle for Ra’s Monkish piano. Unfortunately, the track fades out prematurely just as Gilmore begins to blow. “Kosmos in Blue” is a typical Ra blues, bouncy and maybe a little old fashioned rhythmically, but full of dissonant voicings and an unpredictable, disjointed harmonic structure. Gilmore’s tenor saxophone solo stands out for its stately reserve and concise eloquence.

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As we proceed to move chronologically through the Choreographer’s Workshop recordings, next up would be Secrets of the Sun , the first really mature work of the period. But from there to Cosmic Tones, the discography get a little murky – Sam, I think I’ll need your help sorting these out! Please drop me a line!

Robert Pollard: The Crawling Distance

Robert Pollard: The Crawling Distance (GBV, Inc. 4) (LP/CD) (2009)

Robert Pollard gets criticized for making “too many records” and, indeed, it is difficult (and expensive!) to keep up with every single release by all the various bands, solo projects, and pseudonyms. By my count, he averages 6-9 records (albums, EPs, singles, and sometimes big box sets) per year, every year and even the hippest indie-record store (e.g. Grimey’s) will not stock everything, leaving direct mail order from Rockathon the only realistic option. So, for the casual listener, the sheer volume of releases (not to mention the wide range of sound quality and focus) has to be repellently intimidating. I mean, who is this guy to think that every scrap of tape is worthy of release?

The truth is that Pollard’s genius really is so absurdly profligate that even the most tossed off, drunken boombox recording almost always contains some fleeting glimpse of potential pop perfection: a turn of phrase, a monster riff or tasty chord sequence, a quirky but catchy form, or a brilliant vocal performance. And for the hardcore fan, this prodigious, unrestrained output allows intimate access to Pollard’s creative process. Over time, one gets the sense that no song is finished; no matter how perfect (or very imperfect) it might sound, it is in ever always in the process of becoming. This is evident in Pollard’s current practice of going back to old songs that previously appeared in embryonic form on obscure singles or the catch-all Suitcase box sets. On The Crawling Distance, Pollard revisits “It’s Easy” (from 1984)(!) and turns what was once a mere forty-four second sketch into one of his most fully realized and ravishingly beautiful ballads ever. Truly, this song alone is worth the price of the album.

Nevertheless, at first listen, The Crawling Distance didn’t strike me as imminently likeable as last year’s Off to Business. There’s a proggy weirdness to some songs (“Cave Zone” “By Silence Destroyed” “On Shortwave”) that would have fit right in on the last couple Circus Devils albums. That’s not a bad thing necessarily, but it was only after a few spins that I noticed that even these songs contain bits of the hooky, angelic pop that is quintessential Bob. What sounds immediately off-putting grows into a catchy earworm. Elsewhere, it’s all creamy ballads: like the aforementioned “It’s Easy,” “No Island,” and “Imaginary Queen Anne” rank among Pollard’s most gorgeous, heartfelt songs. “Red Cross Vegas Night” alternates between soft and sad and loud and anthemic to powerful effect. And, of course, the single, “The Butler Stands for All of Us” is classic mature Pollard: sophisticated, melodic pop rock with allusive, yet emotionally resonant lyrics. Given time and attention, The Crawling Distance reveals itself to be another complex but richly rewarding album from the Pollard-Tobias team and is highly recommended for even the merely curious.

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Next up: Boston Spaceships: The Planets Are Blasted (GBV, Inc. 5) due February 27.
Free and legal MP3s of some of Pollard’s recent songs are available here.

Unofficial TV Ad for Trader Joe's

This is excellent!





Via Boing Boing.

Sun Ra Sunday

Mr. Sun Ra & His Arkestra: Bad and Beautiful (Evidence ECD 22038)

Recorded at the Choreographer’s Workshop, NYC Nov.-Dec. 1961
Originally released as Saturn 532 (1972)

By 1961, Mr. Sun Ra and a diminished Arkestra had inadvertently relocated from Chicago to New York City and, although gig opportunities were slim, Tommy Hunter had rejoined the band on percussion. Hunter subsequently purchased an Ampex 601 reel-to-reel tape recorder at a pawn shop in order to record the Arkestra’s frequent rehearsals. Hunter was also fortuitously employed, first at Columbus Rehearsal Studio on 8th Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets and later at the Choreographer’s Workshop at 414 West 51st Street. Thanks to Hunter, the Arkestra was able to rehearse and record rent-free on nights and weekends for the next three years (see Szwed, pp.186-187). Ra had frequently recorded rehearsals back in Chicago, but 1961 would mark the beginning of a particularly fruitful period.

Bad and Beautiful is the very first of a long series of wonderful Saturn records made at the Choreographer’s Workshop in the 1960s. This particular session was recorded in a room on the third or fourth floor where the acoustics and the piano were “not to Ra’s liking” (Campbell, 1st ed., p. 24). Sonny apparently preferred the basement where there was a good piano and better acoustics (Szwed, p.187). Indeed there is a noticeably hissy and tinny quality to the sound. But there is also that pleasantly reverberant atmosphere that characterizes all of the Choreographer’s Workshop records: They have that Saturn Sound. Along with Ra and Hunter, the sextet includes Marshall Allen on alto sax and flute, John Gilmore on tenor sax, Pat Patrick on baritone sax, Ronnie Boykins on bass. They sound supremely relaxed, languidly exploring hoary standards and show tunes along with some rather conventional Ra originals. Gilmore is in his usual fine form throughout but his oh-so-smooth solo on “Search Light Blues” is truly deep and soulful. Pat Patrick plays the unwieldy baritone saxophone with astounding grace on the riff-based “Ankh” and on the gently swinging “On the Blue Side.” But then “Exotic Two” points to the future with each Arkestra member banging away on percussion instruments in dense poly-rhythms while Ra punches out stiff chord sequences on the piano. (Small percussion instruments can be heard chattering away on “Search Light Blues” as well.) The album closes with a languorous ensemble arrangement of “And This Is My Beloved.” In all, Bad and Beautiful is a transitional, historically important album and its subdued atmosphere and sophisticated musicianship also makes for a simply pleasant Sun Ra Sunday.

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Evidence ECD 22038 also contains We Travel the Spaceways (Saturn 409), recorded at various places in Chicago during the late-1950s; it will be considered separately.

Anthony Braxton Interview

Here's a fascinating interview with the man himself, Anthony Braxton: