| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| KevinLesko |
Posted - 09/24/2005 : 1:23:59 PM
ok Zach, I'm ready to learn a bit about this Sun Ra character. I've never listened to anything by him before, but from what I've read/heard he was an avante guard/jazz musician that often made concept albums about space, the future, and Egypt (or combinations of all 3). I've also read that he never kept records of when things were recorded, and was a very eccentric character so his catalogue is mostly a guess? Sounds interesting to me. Tell me more, and what are some essential albums to check out? |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Zachmozach |
Posted - 10/12/2005 : 11:39:03 PM
I knew he had a big output of music, but I didn't know it was that big. Man there is not enough time to listen to all this music and play it. I'm going to have to stop sleeping. |
| victorwootenfan |
Posted - 10/12/2005 : 08:37:08 AM
yeah, i got introduced to zorn 2 years ago...and talk about an output of music! 20 cds worth of just film scores and soundtracks, at least 30-40 masada albums (live, studio, and different groups playing masada tunes). He has at least a dozen cds of modern composed music, like string quartets and symphonic pieces. Naked city, his hardcore band has about 6 albums or so. He has numerous duo albums, and just numerous groups he's played in, on top of various tribute project cds. And everyone one of his groups sounds totally different than the one before it. oh yeah, and there are all the game pieces as well, which he started his career with! |
| Zachmozach |
Posted - 10/11/2005 : 10:42:41 PM
I really haven't gotten all that in to Zorn outside of his Masada project. I'm sure I'll get listening to more of him in time, but right now I'm stuck on listening to these Herbie Hancock shows from last summer and mixing that up with the Jaco with Gil Evans Orchestra. Zorn will definitely open up your ears though. |
| victorwootenfan |
Posted - 10/10/2005 : 4:01:47 PM
I'm a big fan of playing john zorn, or naked city specifically for people. Zorn's tribute to ornette album, spy vs. spy, is another fun one. |
| Zachmozach |
Posted - 10/09/2005 : 2:49:28 PM
Ya, I always love putting on a little bit of Ra for people or a little bit, of Ornette, or anything avantegarde for people who are basically top 40 types. There's always a funny reaction. |
| victorwootenfan |
Posted - 10/09/2005 : 1:05:59 PM
i do love the sun ra. I made a speech in my GCOM class on sun ra, and played a minute of one of their tunes(which one escapes me). It was pretty fun, i think i freaked out the class, and i was high as gas at the time as well, so i had a blast! |
| Zachmozach |
Posted - 09/25/2005 : 1:46:56 PM
Ah, good to see some Sun Ra interest. He was a pretty wild cat, and it sounds like you've got the jist of it, but I will mention a couple of things I found interesting and tell you my favorite albums. It's true the earthly account has him being born as Herman Blount, and there is ample evidence to show it, but he wouldn't tell you that. He would tell you he was from saturn or space. Either way he was brought up in Birminham AL, one of the most segregated racist places on earth at the time, and it's no wonder he figured he was from space. He played piano growing up and eventually after being in a few bands and then being put in jail for being a consentous (?spelling) objector to the war he went to Chicago and after playing many a gig in the brothels he got playing with Fletcher Hendersons group and arranging a lot since he had spent a lot of time listening to records and then making arrangements by ear he had skills. He soon put together his group which was usually somewhat different night to night, and often completely different in the earlier years.
The guy was really well read and there are stories of him going to Central Park after he went to New York (he ended residing in Philly) and just having long arguements for extended periods of time on everything to how white people manipulated history to show the egyptian race as being a darker skinned white people, and the semetic jewish people as being darker skinned white people, and even the early arabics the same, and he would talk about how all the great roman/greek ideas were literally stolen from other peoples, namely the african peoples of color and how it was turned around. Anyway he was way into space and he was in the forties saying that we as humans were on the dawn of the space age. When the 60's rolled around he was always telling people I told you so, I said we were entering the space age. Combine the interest with space, with his other interests of egypt, electronic keyboards, and bebop and you kind of see where he's coming from. His shows were often very pagent like, and he usually had a full troup of dancers with him to dance to certain songs and he often joined them. He considered himself a sound scientist and he was always searching in his music. Trying to play new ways. He once said "The impossible attracts me, because everything possible has been done and the world didn't change." Since he said he was on a mission here being guided by other forces to change the world for the better it's obvious that that was the goal of his music.
As far as his music goes and the best way to get into to Sun Ra... What got me started was a DVD call Sun Ra A joyful noise, which has some performance parts to it so you can see the band play, and has interviews with Sun Ra and his band mates, and gives a pretty good overview to the band and lets you see how they perform. For CD's I like The Heliocentric worlds of Sun Ra (my sig is the album cover), Space is the Place, Sun Sound Pleasure (a must), Sun Song, and other planes of there.
The way I think about it I dig a lot of TR's more out there acoustice space music stuff, so for me Sun Ra is very similar except that it's a large ensemble doing it instead of one guy. His compositions are great too, and he really had some pretty stretched out harmonies that it took me a while to get the intervals. He had some great players too in Marshall Allen, and John Gilmore and just hearing the sounds they got out of there saxes is something else. There is so much music to check out by him and like you mentioned many, many recordings never released and undated just floating around I guess, (considering he was one of the first people to buy recorders way back in like the fifties, and he always updated and he recorded everything) and there were so many albums released where only a few copies were pressed. He definitely provides us with a different view of music though it's been mind opening for me, so hopefully he brings something out of everyone who checks out his music.
"Some call me Mr. Ra, Some call me Mystery, you can call me Mr. Mystery" |
| enthuTIMsiast |
Posted - 09/25/2005 : 09:46:51 AM
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=54766
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=56905
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=53536
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=53370
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=53326
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=44369
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=42741
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=37202
Actually, check those out. One of those is even a DVD. |
| enthuTIMsiast |
Posted - 09/25/2005 : 09:40:06 AM
No luck with yousendit. Kevin, I'll just catch you on aim sometime, and transfer files to you individually. |
| enthuTIMsiast |
Posted - 09/24/2005 : 9:09:05 PM
damnit, I was afraid of that. Took almost 5 freekin' hours to upload, and I guess that's wasted.
Well, if you want to get on AIM sometime I'll send the three shows we talked about. Or I'll see if I can get yousendit to work. Will try that tonight, if it doesn't, AIM tomorrow (or whenever's good for you). |
| KevinLesko |
Posted - 09/24/2005 : 9:06:41 PM
hmmmm... I see the file name listed, but I can't seem to figure out a way for me to download it. |
| enthuTIMsiast |
Posted - 09/24/2005 : 8:44:41 PM
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OW1KN45O
There's a Sun Ra show for everyone to download. Not sure how many times it can be downloaded, but probably at least 10. It's about 380mb, in FLAC format.
Enjoy. Might have another one tomorrow. We'll see.
*edit* well crap, I'm not sure that's going to work. I haven't used megaupload before, but yousendit wasn't working for me today. So if this doesn't work, let me know. |
| KevinLesko |
Posted - 09/24/2005 : 2:27:37 PM
Thanks guys!!! I'm online now, if you want to hit me up... |
| enthuTIMsiast |
Posted - 09/24/2005 : 2:21:48 PM
Kevo I've got two Sun Ra live shows that I could send you via AIM if you want to meet up there sometime.
sunra1987-06-25
sunra6-3-88
It'd be cool to chat with you for a second anyway, got some talking I've been meaning to do. |
| PJK |
Posted - 09/24/2005 : 1:36:59 PM
Obviously not Zach, but hugely big on Sun Ra! Sun Ra was the shit!
Here are a couple of sites to learn a bit about him.
http://www.furious.com/perfect/sunra.html
http://www.missioncreep.com/mw/sunra.html
Anything, ANYTHING by him is awesome!
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