Sun Ra spawns a separate category within avantgarde Jazz. I’ve experienced a mere fraction of this output from the late 50s and on. And I’ve seen mentioned upwards of a hundred recordings or some absurd figure; many, low distribution, low-fi productions whose process lends to independent curiosity.
I can imagine an entire religious doctrine devoted to Ra’s legacy and mysticism: plus studies and dissertations. Space Jazz, Cosmic Jazz, Astral Jazz are some of the ascribed categories. Not sure if Ra even cared for the term Jazz.
Astro-Infinity Arkestra, Solar Myth Arkestra, Astro Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra: some of the ensemble names. Among other influences, a conflation of ancient Egyptian myth, mystic doctrines, sects and space age culture impart on Ra’s music.
To this day, I don’t know what to make of it. And yet I listen to the albums time and time again. The earlier work often surveys the more traditional yet presages more of the avantgarde. But come the mid-60s and the two volume The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra in particular, and I begin to sense much surrealism in a kind of free-space-chamber Jazz.
The Magic City and Atlantis heavily test my frontiers. Though I can’t cease to listen for the uncanny subliminal hints.
Many of these albums employ extensive tribal African percussion. But come the electric piano or some equivalently synthetic concoction and we’re transposed to a landscape of Afrocubism, Afrofuturism, Cyber-Punk, that is, total Sci-Fi. Now once the percussion fades, once we lose trace of any recognizable rhythm section, we’re left with nothing short of - in the words of the sages - esoteric mayhem.
The abstract texture then drags on for an unforeseeable span, at which point I’m nearly hypnotized. But at certain key moments I detect subtle traces of satirical allusions, far in the distance over lengthy plains and mountain peaks, to something otherwise melodically coherent, akin Chick Corea covering Joaquín Rodrigo. On planet Earth, Sun Ra was in effect a trained classical pianist.
Hear Strange Strings for the really unconventional. I’ve heard strings in a percussive role before, but never quiet like this. Incredible counterpoints, dynamics, polyphony. The title sufficiently speaks.
If Imagination can derive substantial Christian influence within the Spiritual angle of John Coltrane’s and Pharoah Sanders' music circa mid-60s (albeit doubtfully exclusive to the pagan African background): that same period sees Sun Ra plunge into Paganism all the way, it quotes. Track names and compositional themes address alike, to various extent, planets, signs, ceremonies and, well, much of the cosmos with which Ra identified his broader citizenship.
Had the writer Lovecraft lived a few decades later, I suspect the ideologies of the two would not have been strangers.
With Ra, I could tangibly associate any modernist or futurist art movement: cubism, surrealism, dadaism, psychedelism (to parallel the late 60s Rock developments)… reversalism, space baroque, absurdism … No nomenclature police section holds jurisdiction on this one.
Questions, comments? Connect.