How have we gotten through this many doses with no Sun Ra?
This is from 1978
Right before Lanquidity, and a year prior to Sleeping Beauty
Most of Ra’s records were on his own label (Saturn)
Though many were also issued on Impulse
And all sorts of strange one-offs
This is from a period of 2 (maybe 3?) they did for Horo in Italy
His discography is so massive, you’d need crates and crates to hold it
Cosmic crates
No way I could try to do justice to the man, his history, or music
Read John Szwed’s Space is the place
He was complicated, for sure
Like, yeah, we all contain multitudes, sure
But maybe some of us (who’s this us, Paleface?) just a bit more
He believed in strong leaders
Was a fan of Nixon, George Bush
This song is one I played a lot during a very difficult period
For obvious reasons
Sun Ra of course was obsessed with harmony
And When is there is no Sun has some of his most gorgeous
The album says “featuring John Gilmore”
The longtime sidekick
Who once taught Coltrane (even though he was actually younger)
Another product of Walter Dyett’s DuSable stable!
Moved to Chicago from Mississippi as a very young child
Despite many considering him one of the greatest tenors of all time, he spent over 40 years in the various configurations of the Arkestra
And never really went on his own
I wonder what conversations he and Ra had about leadership
He took over as director when sun Ra died
But Gilmore himself transitioned 2 years later
You know the phrase “your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper”?
John Gilmore is most definitely your favorite saxophonist’s favorite saxophonist
Ask one if see if any lies have been told
Paul Gilroy has underlined how “barred from ordinary humanity and offered the equally unsatisfactory roles of semi-deity, janitor, or pet, artists like Ra seek another mode of recognition in the most alien identity they can imagine.”
His music, persona, and ideas appeal to a wide variety of characters
And since I’m one, I’m particularly hesitant to derisively brush it off as dabbling dilettantism, apeing appropriation, or preppy poseurism
Though there’s plenty of that, too, clearly
(Same would be true of Bob Marley)
But when I could not bring myself to get out of bed, and would bawl to the point of shaking in the morning without a clear motive (took me a while to realize there’s a pretty well-established name and diagnosis for this), his music had resonances difficult to find elsewhere
Some sonic
And maybe some in seeking flight from unsatisfactory choices (with obviously different sources of constraint, don’t want to promote false equivalences)
Anyway, the vocal lines here only paint what happens when there is no sun
Acoustic piano, tenor, trumpet (and faint bass) seem to offer a flowing way
Kikagaku Moyo said they don’t practice
Sun Ra was known for putting his group though marathon rehearsals
Despite the free blowing evident in so much of their work (New Steps is not a good example of this)
Anyway, you can get some incredible breadth just in their albums from these couple years post-Nixon and pre-Reagan
Will surely revisit some in future doses
In some sort of celestial coincidence, Sun Ra’s last album (mixed by Michael Ray, who is responsible for the ethereal trumpet on today’s dose) was “Mayan Temples”
Which is perhaps how I landed here after Kikagaku Moyo!
edit: or, y’know mighta just been “Dripping Sun” to “When There is No Sun” [mook face]
