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Bridge to the Nth Dimension
13 Apr2009
SPRINGTIME AND SUMMER IDYLL
CONSTELLATION
Sun Ra Quartet
Other Voices, Other Blues
Horo : 1978
Sun Ra, keyboards; John Gilmore, tenor sax, percussion; Michael Ray, trumpet; Luqman Ali, drums.
You might think there were no gems left to unearth in the Sun Ra canon, given the recent reissue bonanza from Art Yard and Atavistic’s Unheard Music Series. But Sun Ra’s catalog is as deep as the gaseous surface of Saturn. The masterful Other Voices, Other Blues hails from his fertile mid-’70s period, an overlooked Golden Age that turned out such diverse and highly recommended releases as Disco 3000, Lanquidity, St. Louis Blues, Media Dreams, On Jupiter, Some Blues But Not the Kind That’s Blue, Sleeping Beauty, et cetera.
What makes the double-album Other Voices special is the rare opportunity to hear Sun Ra in a quartet setting. It’s easier to focus on his resourceful keyboard acumen, the invigorating interplay between the musicians, the etched fireworks of John Gilmore’s sax and dramatically emotional trumpet of Michael Ray. This serves as a sister album to Horo’s New Steps, but we rate it higher for the meatier tunes, textural mesh of freaky sounds and straight-ahead hooks, and brilliant solo turns. There’s an earthiness to the session, evidenced by the fact that Ra abandoned his grand piano for a discarded upright he found in the studio. Its more modest sound fit what he was after.
In the original liner notes, Nat Hentoff dubs this a great Sun Ra album, “an utterly relaxed and deeply satisfying recording” that exposes “the very core of his music.” In fact, the album wouldn’t make a bad introduction for the Ra neophyte. There’s a laid-back intensity evident from the start of “Springtime and Summer Idyll,” with its inventive and pleasantly ambling percussive patterns that’s ignited by Ray’s incisive entrance. “Constellation” is more expansive, beginning with wonderful roller-rink organ comping set against rhythmic horn stabs.
While John Gilmore is typically brilliant throughout, be sure to pay attention to Michael Ray. On the basis of this session, Hentoff proclaimed the then 24-year-old “surely one of the jazz discoveries of the decade” and hailed his “authoritive command of jazz time.” Or in this case, intergalactic time.
So what are your favorite Sun Ra joints that remain out of print?
- In: Sun Ra
- Tags: Horo, John Gilmore, Luqman Ali, Michael Ray, Nat Hentoff, Other Blues, Other Voices, Sun Ra
18 Responses to Bridge to the Nth Dimension
noisebursts
April 13th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
How is it possible to keep track of what’s in proint and what’s not anymore? My record store is getting (legally or illegally, I have no clue…) 180 gram El Saturn records by the truckful and the sheer number of releases is overwhelming.
Mapping the human genome is a hard task, but it fails mightily when compared with the impossibility of keeping track of Sun Ra’s output! Bless the guy, he put out A LOT of stuff.
CF
April 13th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Not sure if it’s out of print, but I have an LP I bought at a Ra concert in the 1970s? 1980? No print on the gold cover, but one of the songs is, I’m guessing, “It’s Spring.” A little wisp of a song, but it has a hypnotic, loping groove that makes you wish it would last for hours. Has it ever shown up anywhere on CD?
doug w
April 14th, 2009 at 6:26 am
CF, your Ra lp is SLEEPING BEAUTY, which was recently (and legitimately) reissued on both vinyl and CD by Art Yard. The track is “Springtime Again” and I agree, the groove kinda makes time irrelevant.
For discographical info, I still hit Joe Moudry’s site, http://homepage.uab.edu/moudry/discintr.htm
Matt from Philly
April 14th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Have never heard it, but I’m intrigued by what I’ve read about the ca. 1970 Saturn joint CONTINUATION. The reissue of SECRETS OF THE SUN (w/ my fav Ra cover art) after much obsessing was a treat
Sam
April 15th, 2009 at 10:23 am
My favorite Ra LPS that remain out of print (besides, of course, the studio Horos):
1. “Astro Black” –perhaps Ra’s strongest studio recording of all, with a stretched-out “Astro Black,” a brilliant Gilmore solo on “Discipline 99,” and a side-long guided comprovisation, “The Cosmo-Fire.” Great Boykins bass work throughout, by far his strongest work with Ra.
2. “My Brother the Wind” (recorded after Volume II, naturally!) –here Ra really gets into the 2 mini-moog thing, with stunning results, especially on the side-long “The Code of Interdependence.”
3. All the rest–they should all be in print! Especially “Continuation,” “God is More Than Love Can Ever Be,” and “Universe in Blue.”
g
April 15th, 2009 at 11:33 am
How about that Phil Alvin record that had Ra backing him up?
Jason Guthartz
April 15th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Voice of the Eternal Tomorrow (1980)
http://homepage.uab.edu/moudry/disc_d.htm#92.
Chris Cochrane
April 16th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Thanks for the post – this was some of the first Sun Ra I’d heard on record, after seeing him several times in NY. Never knew what the record was called and only vaguely new what the cover looked like. Too stoned at the time to remember, properly…I stopped searching years ago. Great to hear it again. Discovered you blog through Dennis Cooper, but periodically hang out with Brian Olewnick as well, have found great things here and with the links attached. ubu web’s a monster
Thanks again,
Chris
Andrew Klimeyk
April 17th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Wow, Chris Cochrane! Chris has a great CD on the
Avant label, called “Bath,” and was also a member of No Safety, Curlew, and Krackhouse. He’s a fine guitarist, definitely worth checking out.
polk
April 19th, 2009 at 9:45 am
all i can relate is a weekly jazz show on my local npr affiliate (91.3 wyso yellow springs, oh) where this oddball host would use various and sundry sun ra joints to open, fill, and (at times) close his shows.
he would also bring his pet cats into the studio. or make ‘meow’-sounds throughout.
uhh, ok.
but that’s the life of a jazzbo…
wouldn’t have it any other way!
did anyone from d-out celebrate record store day? i know we did!
hungrych
April 19th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Is there a bassist on here too? It sounds like it.
LYM
April 20th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Thank to everyone here for Your invaluable and hard work. This site is one of my favourite ones and a fine place where to stand!
You find the whole [Sun Ra New Steps, Horo] here at 320k:
http://inconstantsol.blogspot.com/2009/04/sun-ra-quartet-new-steps.html.
The same italian Horo label, Aldo Sinesio is the name of the former producer, published a third double lp devoted to the Sun Ra Arkestra titled Unity. According to the Robert Campbell Ra’s discography the albums consistis of recordings made in N Y in the late october 1977.
Thanks again SEE YOU
LYM
Sam
April 21st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
hungrych asked if there’s a bass on here as well. The answer is no; Ra overdubbed all the bass lines on the Crumar Mainman keyboard.
See https://listserv.surfnet.nl/scripts/wa.cgi?A2=ind9811&L=SATURN&P=R5431 and https://listserv.surfnet.nl/scripts/wa.cgi?A2=ind9811&L=SATURN&P=R7589 for info about the Horo sessions from the assistant producer, Gianni Morelenbaum Gualberto.
djll
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
The Horo albums, of course. I used to own them (slams head against wall repeatedly).
hungrych
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Cool Sam, sounds like some interesting sessions (though with Sun Ra how couldn’t they it be?).
Bart
April 25th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Hey fellas, Bart here. I haven’t commented in a while, and am late on this one, but just had to add my two cents. This Sun Ra album is my absolute number-one favorite of his unreleased albums! I managed to scrounge up files to this enire album. Excellent choice, you took the thoughts right out of my head. I have been pleased that so many of his sessions are actually in print, but in particular the Horo sessions (Unity, New Steps) desperately need attention. Other than the Horo records, my favorites are Continuation and Antique Blacks (search for this one on blogs–it is absolutely AWESOME!). Later—-Bart
brian kinder
May 6th, 2009 at 8:32 am
This is the 1st? blog i have received hope there are more too come Saturnally Brian Kinder Edinburgh Scotland
Tom
September 27th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Does anyone know how to purchase Sun Ra’s original arrangements or transcriptions for big band? I cannot find a publisher for these works.