Free Jazz Music

This is a great place to start if you're discovering Sun Ra. Another album I'd strongly suggest is "Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth/Interstellar Low Ways."

Sun Ra has made a huge number of recordings with his Arkestra... His albums range from adventurous to downright insane. This particular album and the other one I mentioned contain a very pleasing balance of all the things that make Sun Ra so much fun: the big band, the swing, the rumba, the wild orchestrations and rhythms, the improvisations, and the overall "interplanetary funkmanship" of which George Clinton once sang.

My first Sun Ra album was actually a wild one: "Other Planes of There." I really like it, along with another adventurous title "Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy/Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow." There are a number of these wilder examples of free jazz in his catalogue, and there are also more conventional albums.

My recommendation is to begin with the more conventional albums, because they offer plenty of fun insanity to begin with. "Angels & Demons at Play/The Nubians of Plutonia" is a particular favorite of mine. If you can get a hold of a copy, check it out!

Unlike most of the other reviews, this review is written from the perspective of a relative newcomer to Sun Ra's music who is not a newcomer to jazz. About ten years ago when I began getting into jazz, I heard a snippet of Sun Ra's music that was some of the most raucous and chaotic noise I had ever heard. At that point, I basically wrote Sun Ra off as anyone I would ever want to listen to again. Ten years and thousands of jazz albums later, I have finally returned to Ra in search of new and interesting sounds. I was only disturbed to find out what I had been missing all these years!

As, it seems, with many of Sun Ra's cds released by Evidence, this cd combines two LPs. The first, Angels and Demons at Play, combines some really haunting piano by Sun Ra with some incredible saxophone solos by John Gilmore. There are a lot of spots in which the band plays together as a unit or plays a series of alternating lines in response to one another. The harmonies and general playing of the band simultaneously convey an odd sense of spookiness with a feeling of real excitement about the music. Considering the primitive equipment on which this was recorded, the sound is very good.

The Nubians of Plutonia combines, as the title suggests, complex African rhythms with the spacey melodies characterisitc of the Arkestra. Though the recording quality dulls the drumming somewhat (it is better on some tunes than others), the rhythms drive the other players to creative heights that exceed those on Angels and Demons, creating an unexpected combination of earthiness and spaceyness. As a newbie to Ra, this album--which is not nearly as free or dissonant as a lot of his other music--is highly recommended, especially to those who are already jazz fans and in search of new and creative sounds.

This is great music. I bought this CD after hearing an NPR blurb on Sun Ra and his music, during which they played an exerpt of Aithiopia, which really got my attention. The CD exceeded my expectations. The sound is very exotic (not in a kitchy Martin Denny/Les Baxter exotica way). It's like nothing else I've heard. Listen to the sample of "Angles and Demons at Play," and enjoy. The only oddity is the inclusion of "Urnack," which is a little mainstream and out of place on this CD. The sound quality could be better, but the low-fi kind of adds to the atmosphere. Enjoy-

"Angels and Demons" is a short 8-song collection (more an "EP" than an "LP") that shows Ra's Chicago-era Arkestra doing some of their best work, moving from colorful big-band music (tracks 5-8) to more idiosynchratic music that reflected Ra's belief is cosmology (tracks 1-4).

"Nubians" is a heavily percussive LP that influenced Coltrane among others. The recording quality on it varies from good to so-so. There are some wonderful compositions on it and many lengthy moments of drum-fueled ambience - "global trance" - that sound contemporary today, and were extraordinary for the late 1950's.

I love albums by performers who are in the midst of transitions. Think about the Beatles albums: Rubber Soul and Revolver. They were in the midst of the transiton that freed up their playing, yet they were still remained connected to their roots. That is what Angels and Nubians is like in the Sun Ra catalogue. It is suspended in the middle of a big change of direction from a tighter big band sound to free jazz. It is very complex in mood and is really groovy to boot. A great intro to Sun Ra.

. . . such as Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, and Cecil Taylor (although I'm starting to track with the latter--at least somewhat--on his latest recording with the Italian Instabile Orchestra).

Joe Maneri, the great exponent of microtonal sax-playing, has likewise been one of those players (as well, to a lesser extent, his son, Mat). For some strange reason I can't explain, this disc changes all of that.

I'm not saying I especially LIKE it, let alone understand it; yet it holds some mesmeric power over me as I listen to it (which I am wont to do with rather disturbing frequency). Simply put, I'm drawn into its inner mysteries. Perhaps that's at least partly because I initially thought its title was Angels of Repose (and I still can't get that word image/picture out of my mind; funny how a few switched letters can influence one's thinking).

But no, that's not it.

Or maybe it is, in a weird, bass ackwards sort of way. This disc was, after all, recorded in the Chapelle Sainte Philomene, Puget-Ville, next door to bass player Barre Phillips's home in France. Surely the angels, as well as Ste. Philomene, patron saint of desperate, forgotten, and lost causes, were carefully monitoring the proceedings, and giving their blessings.

This disc will, admittedly, perhaps be a tough listen for those unversed in the strange worlds of microtonal and free jazz. Nevertheless, I encourage EVERYONE to make the effort. As so often happens with the avant-garde, moments of excruciating beauty serendipitously emerge from the otherwise seemingly chaotic proceedings.

Why not give it a chance?

Thomas Chapin's career was tightly linked to Manhattan's Knitting Factory, he recorded no less than three live albums during his all-too-brief career thre, "Anima" is the first.

Chapin, a reed player of extraordinary capacity is joined by his then-working trio of Mario Pavone (bass) and Steve Johns (drums), with future drummer Michael Sarin making contributions on three tracks. The music of the trio is adventerous downtown jazz, relying on Chapin's extraordinary skills as an improviser and musicians not only capable of keeping pace with him, but also challenging him and pushing him further.

At its best, his music is quirky and filled with a frantic energy-- whether his playing is lovely and meditative or angular and inventive. The real highlight of the disc is the stunning "Native Green"-- opening with an expressive solo alto sax performance, it moves into a fierce, funky, midtempo swing with what ends up being one of the best (if not the best) Chapin performances on record as he is endlessly inventive and twists and turns. Similarly, "Anima" and "Fez" feature just stunning soloing from Chapin (the former also features bassist Mario Pavone challenging the leader for inventiveness and creativity on his solo).

Still, the album is a bit mixed-- I'm not wild on "Little Machines", which runs between construction noises, a melodramatic theme and an agile one but doesn't hold together and "00", with its oddly vocalized flute performance, just never sat well with me. Nonetheless, the album is well worth the investment, even if just for "Native Green".

Otomo Yoshihide's album "Anode" is an album I can listen to all the way through. From the opening 10 plus minute track to the final track which is almost 16 minutes, I was hooked.
Anode 1 is a very exhilarating track, so much noise from the 12 performers is created. The drums are insane throughout the whole 10 minutes. Following this musical madness will have you break a sweat in no time. Your ears will take a beating!
Anode 2 is very relaxing and minimal. There is no real theme of this piece but it's still very enjoyable and peaceful to the ear after the first track's savage attack on your ears.
Anode 3 has a lot of droning feedback and electronic noises but still stays as minimal as "Anode 2." It's a very good track.
Anode 1 Variation is just as complex as Anode 1 but it's a little bit easier on the ears. The non-stop drum attack is what really gets me.
All and all, Otomo Yoshihide's "Anode" is a great free noise album. I highly recommend it to all you noise fans!

Keep beating your ear drums!

-L.U.

Joe Morris is always on, I can't wait to someday see him live.

I've never understood Steve Lacy's infatuation with Irène Abei's vocals. Until now. Of all things, I think he's after soul music. Admittedly, of a very strange kind. But nevertheless, soul music. A Soul Music that will resonate with all those who find themselves cut adrift from Tradition. Soul Music for the children of Rousseau.

The clincher is the title cut, "Anthem," a piece commissioned by the French Government's Ministry of Culture in honor of the 200th Anniversary of the French Revolution. This remarkable music, sounding almost exactly like the French National Anthem meets Charles Ives, the words a poem ("Twilight of Liberty") by Osip Mandelstam penned in 1918 immediately following the Russian Revolution, might be dubbed "Modernist Ironic Soul Music." It's Modernist because its methodology is juxtaposition. Ironic, because its attitude toward its materials is hardly straightforward. Instead, employing a very nuanced commentary on the Russian Revolution right around the time the Berlin Wall is coming down as a celebration of the French Revolution makes for multiple layers of irony. Soul Music, because it's so danged Franco-Americanly earnest. And it strikes me that Irène Abei is the perfect singer to perform this song that is more than a mere song: an Anthem, a tribute, a celebration--if a very nuanced and conflicted one.

But isn't that exactly where one finds oneself if one is a Modernist, as Steve Lacy most certainly and ardently is? One can scarcely celebrate the French Revolution straightforwardly, what with its end in chaos and random bloodshed, without nuance and confliction, let alone rejoice in its awkward, painful, and extremely bloody offspring, the Russian Revolution and the subsequent three-quarters of a century of Soviet terror. Yet, if one is a thoroughgoing Modernist, what else is there to celebrate? Certainly, there's no going back, either to the ancien régime, or to the Czarist Monarchy, or, most certainly not, to the Catholic Church. All the old certainties are dead, the old ways of living and being dissolved by the depredations of not only the French and Russian Revolutions, but also the Scientific, Industrial, Philosophic, Sexual, and Cultural Revolutions.

God is dead. The new gods are Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida. We confront the void, admit that the hope of supernatural help is a chimera.

But wait. Some HAVE found their way back: Chesterton, Lonergan, Solzhenitsyn, Marion, Girard, Pärt, Tavener, Gorecki, and N. T. Wright. But not everyone can.

So let us delight in Steve Lacy's strange Soul Music. Let us praise him for the courage of his convictions. Let us realize that, if he can't find his way back, at least he can celebrate something like the French Revolution with a gimlet eye, unclouded by rank Romanticism, guided by probity.

So five stars for what this is: strange Soul Music at the twilight of the old century and dawn of the new. I acknowledge greatness, even when I can't wholeheartedly track with it aesthetically, morally, or intellectually. And Steve Lacy is a great artist. And this is a great record.