Didn't Bugs Hunter also do the effects on Cosmic Tones?

As for the persona, it took me a while to appreciate how multi-leveled that persona is, but at this point I find him rather fascinating. Sometimes moreso than a lot of the music, actually (esp. post-70).

This is a glorious record indeed. And the first track was used by Phill Niblock for his Magic Sun film, which Mr Corbett also reissued on UMS. You can read more about that in the latest Wire, of course.

Thanks, Dave. I agree that historians of 20th Century music tend not to give Sun Ra his due, and When Angels is certainly a great one.

"I agree that historians of 20th Century music tend not to give Sun Ra his due"
You're joking, surely Walt - about twenty years ago that would have been true, but surely the spate of reissues and the huge interest in Ra's work thanks to the Szwed biography and the explosion of Ra-related websites must make him one of the best documented explorers of that period. Unless of course by "historians" you mean academic institutions.. But since when did they gaze out of the windows of the ivory tower for more than a couple of minutes?

I don't think Ra has received his due, even among mainstream jazz historians. The Szwed biography is of course a notable exception, but as often as not he tends to get passed over when discussing the music's history, something that never happens to, say, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or Ornette Coleman.

Yeah, I agree with Dave here, Dan. And I'd add Cecil to Dave's list.

I think a case could be made that Sun Ra's experiments rivalled Stravinky's or Schoenberg's...but it's not an argument I see made too frequently.

I keep trying to enjoy this particluar Ra album, and inevitable wonder why I keep trying every time - Why not just put on one of forty that I have that I absolutely love?
For some reason I just dont get this one, and my favorite is probably cosmic tones...

yeah, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy is my fave of the 50 or so I have, although I do have a soft spot for Strange Strings, and the Black Myth/Out In Space double CD expansion of It's After The End of the World is right up there also.

Cosmic Tones always seems to be the first Ra album that people mention, which I don't entirely understand. I mean, it's very good, but for me at least not distinguishable from the other Evidence reissues of material from around the same time period, such as Other Planes of There, or We Travel the Spaceways/Bad and Beautiful.

Hmmm...the more I look at the full run of albums, the more impressed I am by how prolific the Arkestra was during the 1960s and early 1970s.

In general jazz passes me by leaving me blissfully ignorant... but besides half a dozen electric Miles albums I also have six or seven Ra discs i enjoy a great deal, and at the top of the list is Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy. Good to know my limited selection sits at the top of the pile anyway. :)

If anything Sun Ra was TOO prolific. There is a considerable amount of dross in his discography.
That being said, my favorite is Magic City.
And also a nameless Lp in a plain white sleeve I bought at one of his shows.

Lots of bizarre tape echo on that one.

Which ones do you consider dross? From where I am almost everything from the late 50s to mid 70s is pretty goddamn superb. I agree that the third volume of Heliocentric that ESP scraped together off the studio floor isn't all that good, and some of the albums recorded live in Europe in the early 70s go over old ground, but look at (listen to) some of the stuff that didn't get released at the time - Cymbals and Crystal Spears are fucking awesome. FWIW my favourite Ra albums are Atlantis, Strange Strings and the two Shandar live albums from Fondation Maeght.
The sound quality on the old Saturns of course leaves a lot to be desired, which might explain why "mainstream jazz historians" have passed many of them by. But I think Sun Ra's time will come / is coming - the problem for musicologists is to try and separate the music theory from the astral traveller cosmic afrocentric puns, which are fun, sometimes significant, but tend to reinforce the idea that Mr Blount was a bloody crackpot instead of one of the great musical innovators of the last century. You can hear the professors snigger over sherry in the oak panelled staff room.. "Oh yes, the man with the glittery costumes who said he came from Saturn, haw haw. Pass the fino, James, there's a good fellow."

I like the lo-fi nature and various studio effects on some of those Ra records, and have got to the point where scratchy, gritty recordings are almost preferred to the well-balanced. The way in which something is recorded, as we all know around here, is as much part of the music - and perhaps qualifies on its own instrumental terms - as what the musicians were themselves playing. Sure, Luna Surface and Black Beings are heady stews with or without clean mastering, but I for one will take them in all their grungy glory...

Now as for that contributing to their derision or ignorance on the part of the jazz establishment, well, sure it does. The establishment is all over Bob Marley, but whither King Tubby...?

King Tubby - a musician or an electrician? Definitely a musician, to my mind, and a fine one.

But let's get back to Mr Ra, another fine musician. My two favourite albums of his (at the moment):

Black Myth / Out In Space (MPS)
Lanquidity (Evidence)

I quite fond of pretty much everything between 1960 and 1970 (influence of Robert Cummings? :>}) as well as a handful releases from the 70s. I don't, however, see that much similarity between "Other Planes of There" and "Cosmic Tones"--though I love them both dearly.

Dohol - how can you claim that Sun Ra was too prolific? If anything, much of his music was lost for decades, simply to be discovered/unearthed in the last decade or so. Thing is, we're only now starting to enjoy his prolific output. Who knows what else is in the vaults for people to unearth?

As for my favourite Ra records:
- "Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy" [for the echo alone]
- "Visions" [duet with Walt Dickerson]
- "Other Planes of There"
- "Jazz in Silhouette"
- "The Singles"
- "Purple Night" [why not?! - for "Stars Fell on Alabama"]
- "Sound of Joy"
- "Supersonic Jazz"
- "My Brother The Wind, Vol. 2"
- "Nothing Is"

I probably left out about a dozen others but it's hard to pick favourites here.

I really love Concert for the Comet kohoutek too. Lanquidity I used to have on LP, until I found out how valuable it was for acid jazzers and sold IMMEDIATELY as it was nowhere near the top of my list.

The new Leo double disc concert from 73 is EXCELLENT, but I love that era.

10 years ago I was driving from Chicago to south carolina regularly and at one point I went through every sun ra recording I could find at WNUR and made tapes of all his stuff in chronological order (yes, i would stop albums and go to others when gaps appeared). One thing I found was that I was super-interested in the era right before he left chicago and right when he got to new york (around 1960.) I didnt have much luck finding more stuff from this era: anyone here have that kind of info at their braintip?

Ah man, I didn't intend my comments to be taken for disrespect. Sun Ra has alway been a paragon.
I've seen the Arkestra three times. At the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival in 72, the Frog Island festival in 90, and in East Lansing ( a very sad event ) the year before his death. I wish I'd seen every show he did, even the bad ones.
I believe his discography has something in excess of 180 records ( not counting singles ) And there are releases that are, well, dross. Sun Ra recorded almost everything he did and some of the later Saturn releases sound like band rehearsals. At least they do to my feeble ears. Also, I am no fan at all of his solo piano work.
But that's my personal opinion. That's my own taste.
So, again, I did not mean to diss Mr Ra, only to praise him.

Marshall Allen told me it was around 300 records, Saturns and otherwise. That's pretty staggering, if it's true...

". . . have clouded our appreciation of his contribution to American music in the twentieth century."

Who is the "our" in that sentence?

A short list of "academics" who recognize the importance of Sun Ra:

Anthony Braxton-Wesleyan University
George Lewis-UCSD & Columbia University
Ahmed Abdullah-New School University
Andrew Cyrille-New School University
Reggie Workman-New School University
John Corbett-University of Chicago
John Szwed-Yale University
Allan Chase-(Dean of Faculty former Jazz Dept head)New England Conservatory of Music, wrote his Doctoral thesis on Sun Ra
Milford Graves-Bennington College

"The new Leo double disc concert from 73 is EXCELLENT, but I love that era."

Really!? I found it to be a very messy affair, and the recording is, quite frankly, terrible.

> Marshall Allen told me it was around 300 records, Saturns and otherwise. That's pretty staggering, if it's true...

A consultation with the back of the Szwed book (barebones sessionography) suggests 200 albums is a good ballpark figure. Though there are more detailed ones out there which would probably raise that figure...

It's hardly startling that there's some chaff in that body of work; what's more remarkable is how much of it is good-to-brilliant. & given how much of it remains unreleased even on Evidence, who knows what gems are out there. (How many people heard the amazing Lanquidity, for instance, before it was reissued on CD?)

I wrote: "The new Leo double disc concert from 73 is EXCELLENT, but I love that era."

Brain Marley wrote: Really!? I found it to be a very messy affair, and the recording is, quite frankly, terrible.

Me: yes. i think it's EXCELLENT, and have no problems at all with the sound qulaity. didn't even notice anything to potentialy complain about. maybe remove the gump stuck in your earlobe?

What I hear is the sound of barrel-scraping, gump notwithstanding.

"I don't think Ra has received his due, even among mainstream jazz historians"

say what you will about phil schaff teaching at columbia and doing his thing on wkcr for so many years but the week long sun ra fest that occured of maybe ra´s 60th birth day and the long string is non-stop material that flowed over the airwaves when he died gives at least hope that sun ra would be seen for what he truly is. the more i think about his persona over the years the more i see it as fundamental to how he constructed his music: a total re-creation of self along the lines that artaud demanded. i recorded everything i could ever, even the doo wop group recording he orchestrated and those recordings are absolutely terrible yet it could not kill my fascination. the important thing about his work was utter self-determination. on all levels. until the end when he became too weak, there you find the saddest moments of all, i feel, when he was forced to do the slick and syrupy big band studio recordings, (night of the purple moon, was it?) to pay the hospital bills. i remember seeing him play one of is last shows in oakland and they had to lift him out of the wheelchair up to the piano. unbelievable that he either had to do that or that he also may have even wanted to do that. what are you guys calling black myth by the way, is that the reocord i think of as astro black? on the issue of self-determination and recording quality the other element to recall is that it was the live performance where you really felt the whole arkestra phenomenon come together and the records and cassettes were often sold there. and you just ate them up without thinking if you in fact had the money. sound quality? maybe it hadnt been invented yet, i dont know. but i would actually borrow money from people to buy sun ra records knowing i would never be disappointed. and i never was really. maybe becausae the memories of the performances are so strong. the thing that is not often captured on the studio records are the raps. he would start these chants but then would deliver a kind of absurdist sermon whose logic was in fact always infernal, undeniable. and funny as hell. i have a cassette recorded live at kumbawa jazz center in santa cruz that i know completely by heart. i wanted to write it but owing to the repetition it would really take up space and time. an excellent example was recorded on lp though and it is called "nuclear war". gonna blast your ass so high in the sky, you can kiss your ass, goodbye, goodbye... bye bye, ass! but i always thought the material from the late 50 was recorded just as well as anything in that era but the titles escape me. they are all sealed up in a box back in the states...

I found it to be a very messy affair, and the recording is, quite frankly, terrible.

Brian, I'd gladly take it off your hands... just let me know. :)

"what are you guys calling black myth by the way, is that the record i think of as astro black?"

no, Astro Black is from 1973 on Impulse and I don't think has been reissued on CD (maybe in Japan? dunno). Black Myth/Out In Space is concert recordings from 1970/1971 from Germany, an expansion of the It's After The End of the World LP on MPS.

http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~moudry/disc_b.htm (for Black Myth/Out In Space)
http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~moudry/disc_c.htm (for Astro Black)

Whether or not academics or the 'jazz establishment' gives a rats about Le Sony seems pretty inconsequential in the long run to me. More significant is the influence on future generations of musicians. I could be mistaken, but it seems I read Le Sony being namechecked by bands left and right - free jazz, space funk/space jazz, good ol' fashion funk, the jam band scene, etc.

Spaceways, Inc was formed to play Sun Ra (and P Funk and JB) material, and wasn't there a somewhat older band called Myth Science? I'm pretty certain I've read that P-Funk and and EW&F consider him an influence. I would bet anything those Phish people do too.

Whether it be any aspect of the mythos or the music itself, it seems Le Sony has left a legacy. Perhaps the mainstream public his name, but that's not an uncommon occurrence anyway.

i woke up this morning with the name of one of the late fifties titles in mind: SUN SONG. it is very well recorded but perhaps not the most compelling of the music that he would eventually make. but already you can see this ingenuity for orchestration, the wild intervals etc. and also the themes where there in the titles. the tympani solos, although short, were just the tip of the strangeness emerging, i think.

the szwed bio is really great but there is a structural problem for me in that in the middle you are cast into a sea of quotations from his writings that dont sharply focus back into an analysis of how the ideas relate to the music. what would be an interesting comparison is to look as messaien´s symbolism and compare it to sun ra´s. if messaien was the end of what you might accept as the cross-pollinization of christian myth and creative music (i mean after messaein do we put up with anyone´s piety? we take his cum grano salis because he really had come up with structural extensions of serialism that, for example, pushed xenakis into his own music). but to read messaien without taking into consideration who francis of assisi is would be to miss the point of a lot of his work. and if you dont look at the entire statement an artist is making it is better to just pass by in silence. ra´s persona clearly was linked to authoritarian discourse of religion and bible in black communities. because the bible promised emancipation from slavery. and by coincidence there did happen to be a lessening of slavery over the last century. but then when two major "prophets" (malcolm and mlk jr.) were murdered--and the burning of the church in birmingham-took place you can see that this background of alternative ebonic theosophy that fed him all those years gave this persona its final resonance. he spoke with the disembodied voices of these victims/leaders and, although this is just my own interpretation, the voice of sun ra was of a kind of black christ, the very thing not permitted in official christianity anywhere. i think he sun ra saw hinself as a complete artist who own life substance must be offered up to change christian mythology and thusly civilizuation itself. if you look at what sun ra did on the backdrop of grotowskian theater for example, it might be easier to understand how sun ra envisioned his own actions as having import to the world. if you have look at nate mackeys magazine hambone he published a lecture given by sun ra in nyc in 1977 i think. it is both preposterous and yet completely acceptable kabbalism in which he tries to take on biblical mythology in its own terms and turn it inside out. through the power of the "wered" or the "word". and it lived in his own mouth, spontaneously. and the link between this and improvisation is very clear. what is alive is unstable and changing: the word is always the wered, always trailing behind the actions. and music was a kind of writing with a vocábulary begining where words start to carry so many meanings that the multiplicitousness creates a kind of tissue, like in joyce´s finnegan´s wake (which was such a big text for cage too). my own realization about messaien came in the form that the composer saw his music as a kind of writing. this is quite complicated but if a score contains notations for the actualization of sonic parameters, the physical events of sound themselves are in fact artculations of time and space that aim to achieve some form of communication as well. well, with messaien it was clearly a communication aimed at the divine. with sun ra it is in my opinion more of the needs of the interplanetary community, the planet, the very impossible task fo saving humanity from itself or discarding humanity, because as he a said in an interview with schaff that i paraphrase as best i can: you need to be getting out of that thing called man because man is what has spoiled this planet, in the bible it says man is appointed to die, he is like the beast that perisheth. what do i want to do with anything called man? i think you need to call yourself a demon or anthing else but he got to get himself out of that M-A-N and i spell it cause i dont even want to say it, it´s so horrible and bad and ugly.

despite what anyone can say critically about his mysticism his corpus is thoroughly consistent on all levels. he thought it all through. i think he was very clear about what he was doing.

there are many questions still lingering about how his physical condition maybe influenced his artistic practices. many layers of illusion yet to peel back. the szwed bio disabused me of my long held idea that june tyson was his wife. but i think that remaining arkestra members need to have bios done in order to get a clearer picture.

anyway, i´m sorry to overload the pages this way but few things in this world genuinely get me more talky than sun ra. and also in my excitement my facts in some instances are erroneous. i think night of the purple moon is actually one of great records from the period of heliocnetric worlds and cosmic tone for mental therapy. but as i said, i am far away from my tape collection.

No need to apologise, Jeff, your post is extremely interesting. I agree that Ra's cosmology, music and social theory are thought through and interlinked. They are, however, often preposterous. That doesn't in any way deflate them or make them irrelevant: human beings often manage to construct strong ideas out of nonsense, and, in fact, that's one of our defining characteristics - creativity in surplus of what actuality allows or would seem to need. As for Szwed's biog . . . it suffers from tadpole syndrome, as do most biographies, i.e. most of the formative influences and fascinating material is upfront, and the book tapers off into a relentless and slightly tedious round of interviews, gigs, recording sessions and Arkestra personnel changes. What Szwed doesn't tackle satisfactorily is Sunny's sexuality and what this might have meant for the way he lived his life (within, for example, a surrogate family of celibates, or, rather, 'family' members who were supposed to be, but perhaps weren't consistently, celibate). The Arkestra was a Utopian cult in which society's norms were changed or disregarded, and the music reflects that Utopianism. This accounts for its charm, its oddness, its originality and sheer beauty, no matter how much it owes to jazz.

"Sun SOng" (I have the Delmark LP--not certain of its current status) is one of my fave Ra's. I'm probably not as huge a fan as many, but I do go along with things like "Black Myth", "The Magic City" and "Atlantis" as among his best.

Someone mentioned "Astro-Black" on Impulse--imho, it's an under-recognized little gem in his catalog.

"Sunny's sexuality and what this might have meant for the way he lived hi2s life (within, for example, a surrogate family"

that´s what i was alluding when i spoke of his physical condition. the hernia above the groin which made sex unthinkable. and also that this condition might have created a different hormonal distribtution. he liked to talk about the nubian sides and the caucasian sides seeking internal equilibrium. so, coming from this strong theosophical background, the idea of the return to a unity beyond the division of the sexes in plato´s timaeus must have been on his mind at times. he so often had a kind of grandmotherly aspect about him.

"Astro-Black" on Impulse--imho, it's an under-recognized little gem

there are two great ones called solar myth approach i and ii that i really loved. one had a side on of piano solo. and then some of the electronics too which are always really a treat. of the eight concerts i saw each one was really hard to describe and somehow even always better than the last one. until the one where he was really sick and would die a short few months later. but i witnessed in him what i might call complete ambudexterity to the point that he seemed to almost have two brains when he was doing a keyboard solo, so independently and yet with complete coordination did his hands and fingers move. i must admit that once he died a certain change occured in my relationship to the records. i notice a lot of reissues and three cd sets of the singles but somehow this alienated me. when you got something at a concert it was stamped with that event. and it was in such short quantity that you related to it in a different way. whereas a three cd or more set full to the gills sends me to saturation point.

Jeff - you brought up come excellent points about Sunny....however, I say - Fuck the hernia! Fuck the mythical space lectures and fuck the grand persona! For me, Sonny will always remain a warm, glowing heart. His music has brought so much joy in my life that I've forgiven him on many occassion some of his weaker 80's and 90's output.

I remember that fateful day in 93. I called a friend of mine in Montreal while travelling through Switzerland. He broke the news of Sonny's passing. I cried. I missed him already. I knew the world at that moment had changed for me. There was no return. Something was definitely missing. That night, I caught the Knitting Factory Tours Europe gig in Zurich. Sitting there listening to Gayle play his guts out, I cried again. This time, the tears were of joy, not pain.

Finally - even if Sunny's music remains as obscure as it does at present [let's say relatively obscure], it won't make much of a difference. It's the joy his music has given me that is most crucial. So, I say, fuck the "academics" who deem Sunny's music significant. Do I need "academics" blessing to enjoy his music? Would I enjoy his music less if no "academics" deemed his music "important"? I highly doubt it!

"there are two great ones called solar myth approach i and ii that i really loved."

Me too.

FWIW, and not based on any extensive research (or really any research at all), I've long believed that it was one or more experiences in the Army that produced Sun Ra's other-worldly persona. That place is scary.

The army? I thought Ra's trauma came from being jailed over his draft status. He never showed up for induction. His 4-f status came not from his hernia, as it should have but an army psychiatrist classifing him as a " psycopathic personality "

Oops, yeah. Avoidance of army and subsequent imprisonment.

Like I said, that place is scary.

I'd like to see Strange Strings re-released...

I'm thankful I got to see Ra at a high point, the Squat Theatre run in NYC in 1979. Four hours of beautiful crazyness.

How do you take a clown seriously? That is the really tough question that Sun Ra forces.

Tom - any reason you would call Sun Ra a clown?
Do you honestly think a clown could produce a serious body of work such as his? Somehow, I doubt it.

C'mon Tom, lighten up. You know what Djll's on about - the wacky home-made costumes, the light shows, the stage biz.. no-one's disputing (well I hope they're not) Ra's extraordinary music, but, well, would YOU walk down the street with that hat on with the tinfoil planets bouncing around? Gimme a break!

Dan - Thing is, Ra's music was rather otherworldly...grand and magical to me. I'd not found anything "clowny" about it, though his tribute to Disney was rather comical.

Come to think of it, given the right frame of mind, I would walk down the street with any of Ra's hats on. Is it up for grabs on e-bay or something?

"his tribute to Disney was rather comical."
I found it a bit sad that he played up the, yes, clowning.
"Come to think of it, given the right frame of mind"
A-ha! What IS the right frame of mind?
"I would walk down the street with any of Ra's hats on. Is it up for grabs on e-bay or something?"
If it was we couldn't afford it..

I didn't find it sad that Ra played up anything. In fact, he provided hours and hours of joy to so many people - myself included. It makes no difference whether people refer to him as a clown, though I still find the label to be sadly offensive.
[Are clowns really musical entities? Can they write the sort of pieces Ra did?]

There is no "right" frame of mind. What I meant to say is, if the mood was right, then I'd gladly wear one those hats on the street. Why not!

Dan - you're right, I couldn't afford most of Ra's memorabilia circulating on e-bay.

"I've long believed that it was one or more experiences in the Army that produced Sun Ra's other-worldly persona"

he was never in the army, he had the hernia before he was called up. he was applying for conscientious objector status. it's in the bio. and the way he was treated by the judge was more than deplorable. no, walto, he was an alien, pure and simple. he explained it all in his work. you ever see the film where he stands in front of the white house in DC and says "the universe is out of balance. look, there is the white house. but over here. opposite that, you dont see no black house". the man spoke the truth. and he didnt read zinn or have amy goodman to inspire him either.

" but, well, would YOU walk down the street with that hat on with the tinfoil planets bouncing around? Gimme a break!"

take the music and the pants and the hats, he didnt offer you one without the others. it was the bright pink beard that alerted me to his presence in the coffee shop at the corner of broadway and grant (that's in sf for you who dont know north beach) and i walked straight over to say hello, shook his hand and walked with him back to the club (the mab), he carrying 30 odd chocolate chip cookies for the band. some people live up to their myths. ra was history, not just music, his music was a method of story-telling. you heard the past present and future of jazz (and some other music) up on his bandstand. and you found more than that. i was extremely lucky to experience it directly. when i was in java studying gamelan, the orchestras of the mankungeraran and dalem pujokusuman regularly reminded me of the arkestras costumes and abilitties to play with one another as if led by one mind. there was nothing like it and i dont know if there shall be the like of it ever again.

Dan Warburton, et al:

Does that make Marshall Allen (who continues to perform with the Arkestra in the same dress as Ra) a clown too? What about the rest of the band?
Marshall is 80+ and a fantastic, revolutionary musician. A tremendous person too. He is what we all want to be. All those guys are great.

What should they wear? Why does it matter at all? It's just who they are.

The truly great beauty of the African-American jazz/creative music tradition is that it busts the precious sensibilities of "High Culture" and in doing so, shows us all a way to find ourselves and create an alternative "high culture". Isn't that why we all love it?

guys, calm down.

I know for a fact that djll is a huge ra fan, and didn't mean the "clown" thing in a derogatory way. Tom recorded for a Sun Ra tribute disc, after all.

easy big fellas.

I played a handful of gigs with Marshall Allen. He is anything but a clown. I have yet to meet anyone as badass and humble as he is. He would talk about wanting to go take a saxophone lesson with Benny Carter!
He is still playing great, his screams on that All Star Game cd send shivers down my spine.
He also has such a command of the sound possiblities of his horn. I got to do some duos with him, at that time (7 or 8 years ago) I was really working on trying to play like Barry Guy, lots of prepared bass and quick texture changes with a volume pedal, he was amazing in that context.
I'd love hear him make a trio cd with Guy and Lytton!
He is a really under rated musician.
I would not call Ra a clown either.
I'd call him a genius with a sense of humor, like Misha Mengelberg (saw the ICP sunday, they were so brilliant) or Sigmar Polke.

"I know for a fact that djll is a huge ra fan, and didn't mean the "clown" thing in a derogatory way"
That applies to me too. I'm as big a Ra fan as the next guy. Can't say the same for Disney though.

I don't think Sun Ra would dispute that he was a clown. What he would dispute is the pejorative way in which that term is being used here. Clowns are very complex cultural signifiers. They symbolize comedy, tragedy, buffoonery, evil, joy, death, satire, and sadness. Think about all the diverse representations clowns have taken on over the centuries in different cultural contexts. This is exactly the sort of ambiguity that Ra embraced.

So yes, Sun Ra is a clown. But before you go any further with that thought, ask yourself what it actually means to be a clown.

he was never in the army, he had the hernia before he was called up. he was applying for conscientious objector status. it's in the bio. and the way he was treated by the judge was more than deplorable.

Yeah. I've already been corrected on that. I've read that bio--or much of it anyhow, but my memory's not too good, being from Zarcon and everything. The days are very short there. Anyhow, as I recall, my feeling when reading the book was that that whole draft experience was too much for him. How I got that he was actually inducted is something for me to discuss with my Zarcon healers. Unfortunately, many of them are generally hang out in Lapsoasso this time of year.

Dan - I'm forced to be a huge Disney fan, due to my two little kids, who control most of my TV time. In fact, my daughter loved the Ra Disney tribute...she used to sing some of those songs on the way to daycare with me in the car. [I'd love it more if it wasn't a bootleg.]

David - good points on what it means to be a clown. With what you said, I guess maybe Ra could be considered a bit of a clown, but never in a goofy sort of way. I just never saw that particular quality to what he was doing.

Hey, Walto, stick a forkette in it!

Boy, am I glad to've been away for a couple of days. Thanks for watching my back, Dan.

For y'all's information, I've been listening to Sun Ra obsessively lately, digging such lights on satellites as Other Planes of There, Solar-Myth Approach (opening cut "Spectrum" is extraordinary!), the Nuits de la Fondation Maeght concert, Heliocentric Worlds, etc., etc.

The 'clown' thing comes from Ra's own words, my friends. See page 236 in Szwed's bio. These are some words a few people around here would do well to pick up on: "A race without a sense of humor is in bad shape. A race needs clowns. In earlier days people knew that... You could call me the jester of the Creator. The whole world, all the disease and misery, it's all ridiculous."

And remember Ra's words to the 'jazz avant-garde' (in Szwed's characterization): "The musicians don't know how to connect with the people. ...They have no sense of humor..." (p. 235)

Unfortunately, many of them are generally hang out in Lapsoasso this time of year."

next stop: forkette

and then overforkette

greetings from amsetrdam

Tom - Damn! Time to dig out Szwed's bio. Page 236 you say?

The article starts with this:
Though it remains an important part of his legacy, in many ways Sun Ra’s outrageous persona, his personal mythology and bizarre Astro-Afro-Egyptian equations, have clouded our appreciation of his contribution to American music in the twentieth century.

So is Ra dismissed for being a clown or praised for it? Seems to go back and forth here on that.
It's just part of his thing. People accepted it decades ago.
Why should it affect how people appreciate his music?

I read the book too.

Now I'm forced to re-read Szwed's entire book, with the clown framework in mind. It doesn't really concern me how others perceive him. All I care about is my own perception of the man. It doesn't matter if to others, he was the nutiest, most awkward individual or perhaps a lunatic. I need to concentrate on the huge legacy of the music he left behind...even some of Ra's weaker moments are strangely appealing to me.

Which begs the question - what do you think Ra's weakest recorded moment was on record? I'm voting for the Disney tribute on Leo, based on crap quality. But the cream of the crap was this one record barely anyone ever mentions - "Destination Unknown" released by Enja.

TS: It's page 236 in the Mojo (British) paperback edition.

JM: I certainly never meant to dismiss or in any way belittle Ra in using the term "clown." Nor has his personal mythology, etc, clouded my appreciation of his art. Perhaps that's why I find it absolutely untroubling to use the word "clown" as part of a discussion of Sun Ra.

I do find it satisfying that my original question using the c-word, while perhaps a bit glibly put, sparked just the sort of argument I envisioned. Because I do think some are still troubled and confused by it. It's understandable, seeing as how there are great forces at work in our culture, corrosives and coloring agents, pressure suits, straitjackets and steamrollers, agents whose ultimate aim is to assimilate and homogenize everything. If there's anything Sun Ra stood against firmly, it was just such forces. No doubt, since he had to live that life, he thought about these things much more thoroughly than any of us on this forum.

I doubt he would have blinked an eye at being called a "clown" by anybody. Sun Ra transcended all such labels as wielded by the cultural controllers.

djll

I didn't think you were insulting Sun Ra. I don't think anyone insulted him here. I understand what you mean. I'm not the Ra police anyway.

It's just curious to me that the mix of costume/mythology/entertainment/spirituality and serious music gets all jammed up when it comes to certain people but not others. No one ever wrote: "Elliott Carter's music is hard to take seriously because he never wears an outer space hat." ( Ben Ratliff, NY Times :)

I wonder if it has to do with how people perceive "creative" music these days. As if it is all about being serious, artistic and experimental in the dry sense, or something else. I see some tendency to revise the long accepted perception of the work of musicians to suit the new tastes.

JM:

I don't know, but I can imagine such comments directed at Partch as you faux-quote re Carter. Likewise Stockhausen, especially things like the Helicopter Quartet.

Certainly, there has erupted no fountains of merriment among the practitioners of "the new electronic aesthetics." Compared to that crowd, the most earnest free-jazz player is a laugh riot. One can guess at what Ra would make of the eai/whateverit'scalledthisweek scene, given his approach, as an early adopter, to the Moog synthesizer. He emphasized that it was simply a new way to expand human expression.

On the subject of "the new electronic aesthetics" and " the long accepted perception of the work of musicians to suit the new tastes:"

We've seen and heard the first wave of human-machine symbiosis, where the humans erase their expressiveness in an attempt to be as machine-like as possible. Fine. Been there, done that.

Nnnnext?

Calling Planet Earth: coming soon -

The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets. Edited by Anthony Elms and John Corbett. Distributed for WhiteWalls. 96 p., 45 color plates

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/194698.ctl

ps - a small correction to Joe Morris' Feb-28 comment: John Corbett teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, not the Univ. of Chicago

I'd just like to point a couple of things out:

My review actually starts out with the clown quote, and then I suggest that Ra's personal mythology may cloud some people's appreciation of his music. (I said our, but I meant that in the universal way, not in the specific way.)

And from conversations with other jazz fans (not here, but elsewhere) I know this to be the case. They say they have a hard time "getting past" the whole Egypt-Saturn-space costume thing. In other words, they find it hard to take Ra "seriously." Of course, I think this was exactly the sort of thing Ra was after, to challenge even this notion of "seriousness."

Man, somebody could really write a killer dissertation about him.

a dissertaion on sun ra would be about as interesting as counting how many times he played A flat. that's just not the right context for a real study or appreciation of the man/music.

i've mentioned it elsewhere, but graham lock's "Blutopia" from 1999 is an excellent study of how critics and the public mis/dealt w/ Ra's persona/ being, revelaing their own prejudices and limitations in the process.

"How many people heard the amazing Lanquidity, for instance, before it was reissued on CD?"

Apparently at least unwrinkled and I enjoyed it on Philly Jazz. Ra used to be listed in the Philly phone book: Ra, Sun. A buddy of mine called him and filled up a tape with the conversation; Ra would talk forever if he found the caller interesting. He was also very well read.

Ha. In 1979 I happened to be in a record store in Colorado Springs and one of the guys from Philly Jazz was there, hawking his wares. He had one copy of Lanquidity, which had just come out, left over from the ones they were selling at Sun Ra concerts. I bought it, of course, along with a copy of their release of The Master Musicians of Joujouka. Lanquidity was my favorite Sun Ra record until I heard the single of Nuclear War in Greece in 1987. A young Greek/American teen played it for me, inbetween platters by Ingwe Malmsteen and Paco (the clown) de Lucia and Adrien Belew. The kid was guitar-god-struck, but he liked Sun Ra's nuke chant for some reason. Kid was into guns, too, and was convinced that if he were to go to America he'd need to pack a sidearm.

Blutopia is an excellent study and a great read! A must-read! Braxton's a "clown" too! (Does putting it in quotes help?)

You earthlings have odd "senses of humor."

If they took a census of humor, we humans'd be underpopulated.

for some reason i've been focussing on all of the songs June Tyson sings w/ Sun Ra. I've always loved them, and now realize that I don't know too many discs with her: Concert for the comet khoutek; the recent leo double i mentioned ealrier here; nuits de la fondation maeght; space is the place...could anyone recommend others? (I don't have the big sun ra discography or i would just look her up)

Sounds like you've got the best ones already Andrew
But if you want to check the whole list, this is the Ra discography I usually find things on
http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~moudry/discintr.htm

try: Black myth / Out in space
great 2-CD set recorded in Germany 1971!

Try one of my favourites "Purple Night" - 1989 date that also features Don Cherry. Tyson is featured prominently on the first couple of tracks. Also, "Strange Celestial Road" from 1979 features Tyson throughout. One of my favourite Ra chant-alongs.

Thanks a bunch for the recommendations people - very exciting!!! haven't ever heard these!

"Purple Night" may be a tad hard to find - I think it's been out of print for a while - does A&M Records still exist?
You should probably try E-bay - I'd seen it listed there a few times. Happy hunting!

June sings a couple on "My Brother the Wind Part II" - Walking on the Moon and I forget what else just now. She does some singing on "Nuclear War" but it sadly sounds pretty amateurish. As I recall, haven't listened to that one in a couple years.

Tom - thanks for the reminder - "Walking on the Moon" is Tyson at her vocal peak....and Sonny's organ on that date rarely sounded better.
Anyone know if "My Brother The Wind Part I" will ever see the light of day on CD?

How is the sound quality on those live at ann arbor 72 and live at ann arbor fest in exile (really in ontario) from 74?