Few, if any, bands surpass the Dead in terms of tape archive magnitude. Despite best attempts by legions of fans, an exact inventory of every concert, session and rehearsal committed to tape is probably impossible. The same goes double for Sun Ra whose discography resembles a scintillating mosaic of asteroids in an orbital belt, constantly shifting and extremely difficult to quantify. One thing’s for sure though, there’s an awful lot of it sift through. From piles of hand-pressed and painted vinyl to stacks of barely and often-mislabeled cassettes and reel-to-reels, the Ra archive is one of celebratory chaos. Order was a condition meant for the music’s creation, not its dissemination.
The tiny Transparency label has been making in-roads into organizing some of the more obscure entries, first with a string of DVD releases and soon after with an adjoining series of CDs. The newest projects are a pair of limited edition CDR box sets. Announced a few months ago and available via mail order in the interim they’re now making the rounds of retailers like Downtown Music Gallery and Jazz Loft at middleman-boosted prices. The scope of each is something to marvel at and somewhat akin to a Fatman and Little Boy relationship, if you’ll forgive the atomic analogy.
The Complete Detroit Jazz Center Residency: December 26, 1980 – January 1, 1981 packages an entire 11-concert New Year’s eve stand by the band onto 28 discs and clocks at over 26 hours(!) The 14-piece incarnation of the Arkestra holds court on over a hundred compositions and group improvisations. Audio is surprisingly decent, the product of soundboard sources. Two poster-sized pages give a rundown of both set lists and band members. The smaller Live at the Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto, Canada 1978 culls eight hours of material from three different dates onto ten discs. The Arkestra on hand for these shows is slightly smaller, but basically the same in membership and again, fidelity, while a bit boxy, is more than listenable.
I’ve been living with both sets for about the past two weeks and predictably haven’t been able to carve out much time to spend with them thus far. A warts-and-all philosophy pervades, but it’s also to be privy to the music without the potential distractions of major interruptions or edits. The Horseshoe set is a bit problematic in that individual tunes do not appear to be indexed into tracks and accompanying set lists are not included, but Michael @ Transparency assures me that the information is forthcoming. The entire production operation consists only of himself and a recently hired employee. Given the time and effort necessary to construct each box, they’re both keeping very busy trying to keep up with the steady stream of orders. More boxes are planned for the near future, but honestly, I’m wondering when, if ever, I’ll be able to digest the entirety of these initial ones. Still, the promise of further installments is enough to cause the collector gene in my DNA helix to vibrate expectantly. As I’m so fond of quoting, “addiction ain’t fiction”.
Posted by derek on February 14, 2008 7:04 AMCan't wait for that other web-site - jazz or something - to review these sets....should be an interesting read!
I miss the Horseshoe - quite an interesting place where I saw many high-quality concerts...From what I recall, the Arkestra played there as late as 1991.
38 more Sun Ra discs? Mon dieu. I've only just finished listening for only the second time to Cecil Taylor's Codanza box, and that came out over five years ago. I think I'll just have to pass this one by.
I wonder exactly who this kind of product is aimed at - Sun Ra completists of course you'll say (if they have any money left at all) - how much Ra do you need?
(I've never yet met anyone who owns - or admits to owning - all the Dick's Picks Dead releases. Maybe Edwin Pouncey does at The Wire, but I bet he hasn't spun them all more than once.
To answer your question Dan, no amount of Ra is enough, though I feel I'll give these ones a pass too....do you have enough time in the day to listen to 25 raw live records in a row? How many nights of sleep would you have to sacrifice to fit this into your schedule?
Posted by: Tom Sekowski at February 15, 2008 1:09 PMI'm really curious about these, though I'm sure there are a lot of Ra records I actually "need" to hear before the Transparency sets.
Still... intrigued AND broke!
Posted by: clifford at February 15, 2008 3:29 PMWho needs Dicks Picks when you've already got the recordings?!?!
Posted by: chris h at February 20, 2008 12:45 PMThen there's the 80-CD Glenn Gould set that's just come out... a bargain at $220!
Too bad he didn't write any cosmic poetry... but his essay on Petula Clark is essential.
Posted by: djll at February 20, 2008 6:59 PMUp to disc six on the Detroit, four on the Horseshoe. Fully expect for it to take the better part of ’08 to wade through the remainder of both boxes, particularly since there’s more Ra on the immediate horizon starting with an expanded reissue of Media Dream on ArtYard.
That Cecil set is great, esp. for the fidelity, but I do find it’s harder to pull these boxes for regular listening. The Holy Ghost set is another example of one that rarely gets spun at Rancho de Taylor.
Posted by: derek at February 21, 2008 7:42 AMIt was nice of Albert to die so long ago and not keep making record after record for us to feel obligated to buy and critique!
Posted by: djll at February 21, 2008 10:25 AMJ.S. Bach also died a while ago. Yet Teldec issued a 153-CD box of his opera omnia....Nice to read Sebastian's aficionados "fighting reviews" of this set on Amazon!
Me, I haven't played ONE of the 51 CDRs of a Hermann Nitsch box purchased two years ago yet. Huge sets are against any chance of a regular life indeed.
I got out my copy of the Revenant Ayler box last night, turned the lights down low, and smeared vaseline on my glasses, through which I regarded the contents fondly, softly. I ran my fingers slowly over the faux spirit box. Then I took out the CDs and slowly shuffled them, holding them up to the light so I could look right through the colored faux rice-paper sleeves. I fingered the two dried flowers in their cellophane sachet. I read the enclosed reprints of The Cricket and the other thingys, then re-read the book from cover to cover, admiring Amiri Baraka's restrained prose and puzzling over the comments of Alvin Silva and Cecil Taylor. My mind soared, imagining the avant-gardiness of the scenes in New York, Cleveland (? maybe not), and Copenhagen.
Then I fell asleep in a pre-orgasmic daze. I never did get around to listening to any of it.
Posted by: djll at February 22, 2008 3:41 PMThat's hilarious Tom....
I used to do that from time to time with my Holy Ghost set too....are those dried flowers real by the way?
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