OccultHawk

God Bless You Son.

I also love Sun Ra This is going to be intense.

zachsd

Sun Ra is a musician I could never really get into, and this is coming from a fairly-avid jazz fan. Hopefully this will steer me in the right direction for getting to know him better. And wow, it will be interesting to see if you finish this to the end (granted I'll still be sticking around this forum by that time).

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Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Super-Sonic Jazz
1957



Tracks

1. India
2. Sunology
3. Advice to Medics
4. Super Blonde
5. Soft Talk
6. Sunology Part II
7. Kingdom of Not
8. Portrait of a Living Sky
9. Blues at Midnight
10. El Is the sound of Joy
11. Springtime for Chicago
12. Medicine for a Nightmare

Another mixed bag of a Sun Ra CD. Again, not that the straight jazz stuff is particularly bad, just not what you'd expect from a Sun Ra outing. A great example of a more traditional Jazz song done to perfection is Sunology Part II which is a beatifully laid back melodic epic.

One thing that really stands out though is Sun Ra's odd choices in percussion. Something that is present through the first few songs, disappears in the middle mysteriously, and returns later on. If I were to describe this album best it'd be in phases.

Phase I: Experimental/Trademark

India
Sunology
Advice Medics

Phase II: More traditional

Super Blonde
Soft Talk
Sunology Part II
Kingdom of Not
Portrait of a Living Sky
Blues at Midnight

Phase III: A mixture

El Is the sound of Joy
Springtime for Chicago
Medicine for a Nightmare

I'd say due to this dichotomy, however, a lot is taken away from the CD. Especially since the clear high point is the opening track 'India' Which is a masterpiece of "unflinchingly avant" jazz. Strange percussion, some classical operatic sensibilities, and too perfect of a mixture of everything Sun Ra is a genius at. Makes the rest of the album seem like a downward slide:



Albeit, not to discredit other high points of the album. A lot of the later songs are very abrasive, and 'heavy' particularly for later 50s jazz pieces. Advice to Medics is also another neat Avant-Garde piece, and, once again, Sunology II is over whelming. Springtime for Chicago and Medicine for a Nightmare are also high points of this album.

However, as a whole, seems sort of poorly arranged, and as if there were way too many songs pandering to a more traditional jazz sound in order to acquire some fanbase. Still, nothing on here is bad. Production, as often, isn't the best but I like the way Sun Ra produces(a lot of fuzzy recording, VERY loud drums), but for somebody more fidelity minded, this album ain't for you.

With that said, nothing on here is bad, and nothing I even would say ever dips below quality of well above most other people's best. So, my final rating:

7.5/10 - High moment in India which is a definite 10/10 song.

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Al Pacino = God

Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Alright, I'm going to have to postpone this until Tuesday. I ran over in the bank, and had to return my newly bought headphones. No need to fret, though, I will be able to rebuy them when Tuesday comes around.

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Al Pacino = God

Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Sound of Joy
1956(So was the last one, mislabel on my part)



Tracks

1. El Is the Sound of Joy
2. Overtones of China
3. Two Tones
4. Paradise
5. Planet Earth
6. Ankh
7. Saturn
8. Reflections in Blue
9. Viktor
10. As you Once Were
11. Dreams Come True

Of all reviewed, The most conservative Sun Ra album yet. Again, not bad, but this album is almost strictly swing-jazz. It's well performed, but lacking a lot of the nuance of even the two albums before. SOME strange percussion but not much experimentation than that. I suppose that Sun Ra had to conform his sound a lot early on in order to acquire an audience, so it's understandable. Still, nowhere near up to snuff to his mid-60s experimental work, and 70s fusion, noise, pop experimentations. Good stuff, just lacks a unique voice.

Kind of sad because not much really struck out to me. The last two tracks have vocals. One is loungey, and the other sounds like it's trying to imitate Louis Armstrong. Really weird to hear Sun Ra being this bourgeoisie with his artform, but we know how the story pans out in the end.

6/10

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Al Pacino = God

OccultHawk

One of the great things about Sun Ra is what a fantastic conventional jazz musician he was when he wanted to be. It makes his deep stretches into the avant garde more meaningful. That cat knew what he was doing!

Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

True, but with that said, this album felt like a commercial stretch. Almost ever album he does has some element of traditional jazz on it in order to ease the listener in. This album, however, had nothing much for the listener to be eased into.

Even the conventional end of it isn't his best when it comes to his conventional stuff. Not a knock on Sun Ra, but you have to remember I'm trying to grade these albums in relative to each other, and I'm 100% sure since this is one of the few not released on his label that he was either censored, or self censoring on this one.

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Al Pacino = God