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Sun Ra: God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be
by Chris May
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 ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra: Exotica
by Chris May
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 ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra: Sun Ra Plays Gershwin
by Chris May
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 ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra Nuclear War: A Smooth Soundtrack to the Apocalypse
by Matt Hooke
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 ...
Continue ReadingVinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium by John Corbett
by Mark Sullivan
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 ...
Continue ReadingMarco Pesatori, sotto le stelle del jazz
by Rosarita Crisafi
Marco Pesatori è un noto astrologo italiano e un intellettuale eclettico. Scrittore, laureato in Storia della critica d'arte con una tesi sul movimento Dada, è stato collaboratore di Gianni Sassi nella Cooperativa Intrapresa, un laboratorio che influenzò profondamente la cultura e l'industria discografica italiana ed europea a cavallo tra gli anni '70 e '80. Nel suo primo romanzo “Il Trigono del Sole" (Feltrinelli), Pesatori narra la Milano degli anni tra il 1973 e il 1977 con lo sguardo di un ...
Continue ReadingCalling Ra, Mr. Sun Ra your rocket ship is ready
by Mark Corroto
How prophetic is it that we now live in the second century of Sun Ra's earthly existence? Born (maybe) in Alabama 1914, Herman Poole Blount became the pianist, arranger, band leader, poet, and can we say prophet(?) we know as Sun Ra. He was both a man of his times and a messenger from the space. I say he was maybe born in 1914, because the person known as Sonny Blount claimed to have been abducted by space aliens in ...
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