Jazz Articles about Sun Ra

About Sun Ra

Live Review

Vicenza Jazz 2018 - Prima Parte

by Libero Farnè
May 18, 2018

Vicenza Jazz Varie sedi 10--20.05.2018 “The Birth of the Youth" era l'allusivo sottotitolo della ventitreesima edizione del festival vicentino, come sempre sotto la direzione di Riccardo Brazzale. Il tentativo, affrontato anche dalla grafica neo-psichedelica del manifesto e dai saggi di vari autori nel prezioso quaderno, era quello di celebrare il cinquantesimo anniversario del Sessantotto, o meglio di sottolineare come in quel periodo il rinnovamento del jazz, con l'affermazione del free e del jazz elettrico, ...

Album Review

Sun Ra: Of Abstract Dreams

Read "Of Abstract Dreams" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
April 29, 2018

Neither Sun Ra's death nor the passing of a quarter of a century since has slowed down the seemingly insatiable appetite for archival recordings of the pianist, composer and poet. In 2014, to mark the centenary of Sun Ra's birth--né Herman Poole Blount--Strut Records and Art Yard issued the 2-CD, career-spanning compilation In The Orbit of Ra. This was followed by Planets of Life and Death (2015), a previously unreleased live recording from 1973 in Amiens, France, Some Far Place ...

Album Review

Sun Ra: God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be

Read "God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
April 12, 2018

Sun Ra is best known for the extensive archive of recordings he made with his Arkestra, and most Ra enthusiasts are probably first attracted to his work by the sui generis imagination he brought to arranging for large ensembles. These span the recalibrated swing-band tropes of Jazz In Silhouette (Saturn, 1959), a perfect choice for an advanced-level Blindfold Test, through off-planet takes on exotica such as those compiled on the previously reviewed Exotica (Modern Harmonic, 2018), and on to such ...

Album Review

Sun Ra: Exotica

by Chris May
March 19, 2018

Spring 2018 is delivering a welcome batch of Sun Ra reissues, some of them remastered editions of existing albums, others newly put-together compilations. Among the compilations, two stand out: the previously reviewed Sun Ra Plays Gershwin (Enterplanetary Records, 2017) and now Exotica. Both are mellifluous beauties which showcase Ra's unapologetic love of a good tune. Listeners who prefer bracingly atonal Ra will need to look elsewhere. In the jazz community, the guiltiest of guilty pleasures might well be exotica, the ...

Album Review

Sun Ra: Sun Ra Plays Gershwin

Read "Sun Ra Plays Gershwin" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
March 12, 2018

Here is a treat for all lovers of the Great American Songbook. Well, maybe not quite all, for the confluence of names in the album title Sun Ra Plays Gershwin may sound ill-matched to Ra's detractors. But that would be to ignore Ra's love of good tunes and his sure touch when it came to arranging ballads and jazz standards, first for Fletcher Henderson in the 1940s and later for his own bands. You want bracingly atonal Ra? You got ...

Jazzmatazz

Sun Ra Nuclear War: A Smooth Soundtrack to the Apocalypse

by Matt Hooke
November 14, 2017

With threats of our impending doom through nuclear hellfire seemingly increasing by the day. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to talk about one of my favorite Sun Ra songs, “Nuclear War." A song so smooth and hilarious it almost makes you welcome the apocalypse. “Nuclear War" was released twice, initially on the 1982 album of the same name, and then a second time a year later on A Fireside Chat with Lucifer since on both ...

Book Review

Vinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium by John Corbett

by Mark Sullivan
April 29, 2017

Vinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium John Corbett 264 Pages ISBN: #0822363666 Duke University Press Books 2017 John Corbett is a music critic, record producer, and curator. For twelve years--from 2000 to 2012--he wrote a column titled “Vinyl Freak" for Downbeat magazine, and those collected columns form the backbone of this book. Corbett wrote about out of print LPs in his extensive collection: ranging from the extremely obscure (and in a ...