Where does Sun Ra fall in the history of Jazz?

[TheMusicalMarine]

I don't know much about Sun Ra, aside from his supposed Saturn birthplace and the fact that he was quite prolific. Should every jazz collection include at least a few key works by him, or is he more of a niche artist?

Thanks

[VIBEr]

I don't think "niche" is the correct word, but rather to say that there are certain artists that are so unique that they simply exist in their own world. They don't follow a preceding movement, and they don't create new genres. There really hasn't been anyone like Rahsaan before or since Rahsaan himself, and Sun Ra would be someone who I would describe as being equally unique in his own way. He exists in his own plane of existance; you can't really compare him to anyone, and either we dig it or we don't for what it is.

I think a collection only needs some Sun Ra if the collector digs Sun Ra or desires to check out the artist.

[Nate Dorward]

Sun Ra's Arkestra is (arguably!) the most significant big band to emerge in the postbop era. In any case, you should hear Ra. Start with the early stuff from the 1950s to 1961 before moving to the wilder stuff from later in the career. Jazz in Silhouette is the classic from the period; I also like Sun Song, his first album I think, on Delmark. The albums sound not all that much farther "out" than Mingus's work from the period.

[Pete C]

I was fortunate enough to see the band 3 or 4 times between about '75 & 80. The visual/performance element of the stage show was such an important element of the total package. I've seen the documentary "A Joyful Noise," but I don't know of any full concert video.

I think "Space is the Place" is as good a place as any to start.



Robin Eubanks played a bit with Ra. I hope he checks in with some insights.

[Bill Barton]

Nate's recommendations are right on the money from my perspective. Also, check out a very interesting Sun Ra website here. John F. Szwed's book Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra is well worth reading too.

I'd also highly recommend The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra series. Volumes One and Two have been reissued on CD, Volume Three is (I believe) out of print.

From the 1970s, I've always liked Lanquidity a lot. It was originally issued on Philly Jazz and has been reissued in CD format by Evidence. There's a strong funk influence on this one. Kind of keys you in to why Ken Vandermark and friends in Spaceways Incorporated juxtapose Sunny with George Clinton!

Evidence has a huge catalog of Ra reissues (the label was initially formed to do just that - reissue hard-to-find Arkestra recordings.) A number of the relatively early 1960s albums are combined two LPs to one CD in their series.

One of the things that I've always loved about those early Arkestra groupings is the unique sound of the reed section, with Ra often using two baritone saxophones. And anything with Ronnie Boykins on contrabass is also highly recommended.

Enjoy the journey...

While Sun Ra may transcend any attempt to place him somewhere in the history of earthly music like jazz, one important link is modern Chicago. Sun Ra left Chicago around 1960, but a number of the key musicians he trained stayed on, and some of them helped develop the AACM movement. If Muhal Richard Abrams was the father of the AACM, Sun Ra was the true Godfather.

[Captain Hate]

Two things I always feel obliged to point out in any discussion about Sun Ra:

1. He was a very unique pianist, which often gets overlooked by his compositional and arranging prowess. Steeplechase has (had?) at least one excellent collection of solo piano and a duet with vibist Khan Jamal.

2. No discussion of Sun Ra is complete without mention of one of the greatest tenor players ever, John Gilmore. He was a multi-instrumentalist that allied himself with Ra to the almost complete exclusion of all other gigs (there was a duet with Paul Bley, I think, on IAI; a Blue Note session with Clifford Jordan & Johnny Griffin (I think) and an Andrew Hill large aggregation; there might have been a Blakey session also, if so I've never heard it) and was an acknowleged influence on Coltrane. Gilmore's playing is a model of extremely lucid "out" playing; his solos have a stunning logic to them. I can't imagine the Arkestra without him.

Ra was very good at getting excellent musicians to play for very little money (I heard after his death that he would arrange for the band to be put up in people's houses because of how little money they charged; had I known that I would've volunteered Chez Hate) because of the excellence of his compositions, as noted in prior posts. I saw them at least a half dozen times and would always marvel at the trumpet players, who seemed to change from concert to concert, who were always first rate.

[Pete C]

Originally posted by Captain Hate
2. No discussion of Sun Ra is complete without mention of one of the greatest tenor players ever, John Gilmore. He was a multi-instrumentalist

I seem to remember that during the period I saw the band Gilmore tended to play drums during the ensembles, rather than section tenor.

Gilmore is also on Pete LaRoca's "Turkish Women at the Bath" which has sometimes been reissued under Chick Corea's name, and with a different title.

Here's John Corbett on Gilmore:



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While he is best known for his work with Sun Ra amid the emergence of free-jazz and creative music, John Gilmore had an important impact on much of the post-modal mainstream, in no small part through his influence on John Coltrane. A serious kink in the reductionist jazz historian's neck, Gilmore was at once a dedicated aural explorer and a bona-fide hard-bop giant, taking eight months off Arkestra duties in the mid-'60s--at the height of Ra's most outre space investigations--to tour with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

As influences, he cited Hawk, Bird and Pres, but also Stan Getz; he possessed a beautiful tone, played stunning ballads, but was also one of the most thorough investigators of saxophonic extremes, from slap-toungue to overblowing and harmonics. Neither all out nor all in, Gilmore exemplified the maintenance of tradition at the core of innovation.

Born in Summit, Miss. on Sept. 28, 1931, Gilmore studied clarinet as a teenager after moving to Chicago at age three. He had a stint from '48-'51 as a clarinet soloist in Air Force bands. Like so many great Chicago musicians, he studied under Captain Walter Dyett at Du Sable Hight School. On tenor, he toured in 1952 with the Earl Hines Orchestra as part of a road show accompanying the Harlem Globetrotters. In 1953, Gilmore became one of the intial members of Sun Ra's quickly expanding Arkestra, alongside fellow-saxophonists Pat Patrick and Marshall Allen.

Gilmore was a key element of early Arkestral maneuvers, playing on their first record, Jazz By Sun Ra, released in 1957 on Transition (available on the Delmark disc Sun Song), and on the initial offerings from Ra's prototypic independent label, Saturn; in the end, he had appeared on nearly all of Ra's 150-plus records. Along with tenor and clarinet, Gilmore played drum kit when needed, and his startling early use of bass clarinet can be heard on "Dimensions In Time" on Fate In A Pleasant Mood/When Sun Comes Out (Evidence).

Gilmore credited the advanced intervals of Ra's composition "Saturn" with causing him to commit himself to the Arkestra. "I'm not gonna run across anybody who's moving as fast as Sun Ra," he told Graham Lock in The Wire in 1990. "So I just stay where I am." Though he was a devoted Arkestra member through-and-through, Gilmore made a number of notable records outside Ra's omniverse as well. While still in the Windy City, he and Clifford Jordan co-led a classic date for Blue Note, Blowing In From Chicago, with a monster rhythm section of Blakey, Horace Silver and Curly Russell.

When the Arkestra relocated to new York in the early '60s, there was little work for the huge vanguard ensemble, so the members took more side-gigs than usual; at this time, Gilmore played on Impulse! Records with McCoy Tyner and Freddie Hubbard, and elsewhere with Elmo Hope, Paul Bley, Pete La Roca, Andrew Hill and Blakey. During one of Gilmore's first New York performances at Birdland, Coltrane ran up to the stage after his solo yelling, "He's got it! Gilmore's got the concept!" By his own admission, Coltrane--who asked for a quickie lesson after the set--was so moved by Gilmore's harmonically ingenious, against-the-grain style that it inspired him to create the groundbreaking "Chasin' The Train."

On the day Gilmore died, the Arkestra was playing at Kimball's East in the San Francisco Bay Area, and in tribute they featured some of the tunes he loved best. Many of us will think fondly back on the great tenor player crooning "East Of The Sun (And West Of The Moon)." Gilmore was one of the great omni-musicians in jazz, a warm, quite person, and a gentle iconoclast.

--JOHN CORBETT, Downbeat

[Nate Dorward]

Originally posted by Captain Hate
1. He was a very unique pianist, which often gets overlooked by his compositional and arranging prowess. Steeplechase has (had?) at least one excellent collection of solo piano and a duet with vibist Khan Jamal.

I thought it was Walt Dickerson, or is there another disc too?

[shrugs]

I think IAI has two solo discs.

[shrugs]

Originally posted by Captain Hate


2. No discussion of Sun Ra is complete without mention of one of the greatest tenor players ever, John Gilmore. He was a multi-instrumentalist that allied himself with Ra to the almost complete exclusion of all other gigs (there was a duet with Paul Bley, I think, on IAI; a Blue Note session with Clifford Jordan & Johnny Griffin (I think) and an Andrew Hill large aggregation;

The date with Jordan is Blowin' In From Chicago. Griffin is not on it. It was just reissued. The date with Hill is a Quintet and the name of it is Andrew!. It's with Bobby Hutcherson, Richard Davis and Joe Chambers. Only available on vinyl or as part of the Mosaic set.

I was reading an old Signal to Noise interview with Marshall Allen, Noel Scott and Tyone Hill the other day and they mentioned that before Gilmore died he made them promise they would continue to play the old Fletcher Henderson tunes and the stomps.

[frankiepop]

Should every jazz collection include at least a few key works by him,

if u can find sun ra and his arkestra 'live at montreaux,' which is a 2fer & oops, that was recorded in the early 70s. i dare say a 'classic'

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

I've found Sun Ra to be among the most accessible and enjoyable avant-garde artists.

I'll give seconds for "Jazz In Sillouette" as a great place to start, and "Lanquidity" (space disco/funk) but also check out "Holiday For Soul Dance" (mostly standards), "Other Planes of There" and "Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy" (a couple of great early 'space' albums) and "Mayan Temples."

And I like Sonny's piano playing on the Billy Bang album "A Tribute To Stuff Smith."

[Captain Hate]

Originally posted by Nate Dorward
I thought it was Walt Dickerson, or is there another disc too?

You are correct; I got it confused with the IAI recordings.

[Samuel]

Some time around 1975, I took a summer-camp class with Larry Lesser (who went on to become dean of New England Conservatory of Music). Larry asked us to bring in the most "outside" stuff we had for the class to review. I brought this:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p...=A4gjc7io8g76r

Larry turned it off after two minutes, snarling, "Commercialized CRAP!"

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Samuel -- I don't know the album. Was he saying it was commericalized Sun Ra? Or that Sun Ra was commercial? (Hard to believe!!)


Since Sonny's two great long-form pieces haven't been mentioned yet, allow me:

Atlantis

The Magic City