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Sun Ra at Inter-Media Arts, 1991
by Howard Mandel
On April 10, 1991, the night of this concert at Inter-Media Art Center in Huntington, Long Island, Sun Ra was near the apogee of his earthly transit. Having led his transformative iterations of his Arkestra around the globe for an unlikely if not unimaginable four decades, the visionary composer, keyboardist, conceptualist and cosmologist was, even though in recovery from a stroke, at the peak of his powers, two years from breaking free of his local orbit entirely. He ...
Continue ReadingArtificial Intelligence and All About Jazz? DIG 9000 jams with ChatGPT
by Kurt Ellenberger
As the internet's oldest jazz resource, All About Jazz (AAJ) has always been on the cutting edge of using new technologies in the promotion of jazz and jazz musicians. This commitment continues to this day with the new technology that has emerged in recent months, namely, the so-called “Artificial Intelligence" (AI) known as “ChatGPT" that has created such a stir in the media and in education in particular. AAJ has experimented with AI for content creation and the ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra's Cosmic Wardrobe
by DIG 9000
Sun Ra was a musician, composer, and bandleader who was known for his innovative approach to jazz and his unique personal style, which often included elaborate costumes and otherworldly stage props. Sun Ra believed that he was from Saturn and was sent to Earth to spread a message of peace, harmony, and creativity. One of the reasons why Sun Ra wore costumes was to create a visual representation of his belief in the power of imagination and the ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra: The Futuristic Sounds Of Sun Ra - 60th Anniversary Edition
by Doug Collette
Produced by Tom Wilson, the same man who also helmed recordings by the Mothers of Invention, Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground, The Futuristic Sounds Of Sun Ra may belie its title when described as one of the most accessible titles in his lengthy discography. Nonetheless, like its concert companion piece, At Inter-Media Arts, April 1991 (Modern Harmonic, 2016), the relatively concise approach overseen by its famous studio supervisor can reasonably function as the gateway into that vast universe of ...
Continue ReadingThe Space Station Jazz Program
by David Brown
In a time before astronauts and cosmonauts explored the space beyond our planet, jazz musicians were already there. In the '50s reference to space in album titles, graphics and song titles equated the music with the modern. This is still true today as space is a place for exploration in jazz. This week, let's jump around the Jazz Continuum and explore some space together. Playlist Thelonious Monk “Esistrophy (Theme)" from Live at the It Club-Complete (Columbia) 00:30 Dinah ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra Arkestra: Nothing Is... Completed & Revisited
by Maurizio Comandini
L'etichetta svizzera Ezz-thetics sta facendo un lavoro eccellente con capolavori degli anni sessanta riproposti in edizione da loro stessi definita 'revisited' che cerca di fare ordine e chiarezza anche su momenti un po' dimenticati che meritano di essere riscoperti e pienamente apprezzati. Tutto questo è ancora più necessario quando ci troviamo alle prese con la discografia di Sun Ra, uno dei primi artisti a scegliere di auto-prodursi con la mitica etichetta Saturn, piena di episodi memorabili ma ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra Arkestra: Nothing Is... Completed & Revisited
by Chris May
The 1966 concert recording which comprises this album--here in a new, audio-improved edition--has travelled the discographical spaceways in what, when it comes to Sun Ra, is properly circuitous and confusing fashion. Eight tracks from it were scheduled for release by ESP-Disk in 1967 or 1968 as The Heliocentric Worlds Of Sun Ra Volume III, complete with a catalogue number (ESP 1046), but the release never happened. The same tracks were then issued by ESP as the LP Nothing Is in ...
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