SUN RA SUNDAYS by Rodger Coleman This is a compilation of blog entries about SUN RA authored by RODGER G. COLEMAN from 2008 to 2015 and posted at nuvoid.blogspot.com. Coleman's blog contains hundreds of posts on a myriad of music subjects; we've culled only the Ra content. We have added no commentary, preferring to let this writing speak for itself. The vast Sun Ra knowledge base covered in Coleman's posts remains vital and historically valid. Identifiable historic inaccuracies (generally based on best-available sources at the time) are neither corrected nor footnoted. These are the posts and responses as they were published online at the time—the verbatim historic record. All copyrights belong to Coleman and the authors of the comments and quoted sources. This chronicle was collected, formatted & edited by Irwin Chusid, with assistance from Kristen Pierce, in November 2018. It is sequenced chronologically. Some unintentional misspelling has been corrected; idiosyncratic spelling, abbreviations, and casual disregard of capitalization niceties (mostly in the comments) were left as written. Most dead links are omitted. Reader comments are highlighted in red (although salutations- only comments have been omitted). Graphic images and photos from the blog are not included. (For graphics, see SAM BYRD's complementary collection of Sun Ra Sundays posts; Byrd also arranged all entries in discographical order.) This content has been collected for preservation, research, and circulation. In some cases, recent findings have amplified, clarified, or superseded particular details or assertions. It would be interesting to crowd-source updates with new information that's come to light since these posts were published. Such an undertaking would constitute yet a third version of this compilation. The opinions herein are exhaustive, authoritative, and worth reading. They are a valuable addition to Ra scholarship—particularly as regards Sun Ra's massive recorded output—and should be preserved in case the www disappears. Thank you Mr. Coleman for your monumental journalistic commitment. This chronicle belongs between covers. Irwin Chusid Hoboken NJ November 2018 [email protected] FOREWORD I am happy to have this writing preserved and shared with the world to help bring Sun Ra's discography into focus. After almost seven years, I eventually burned out on the Sun Ra Sundays project. There was too much going on my life and the posts had started to feel like an unwanted obligation. However, I am still proud of the writing. Looking back, it is astonishing to me that I had so much energy to devote to it. At some point in all that blogging, I talked about what prompted the whole Sun Ra Sunday project. It was a combination of things. I was working in a high-pressure law office where I was doing tremendous amounts of research and writing which was so stressful that Sundays were unbelievably depressing. I found that listening to Sun Ra's music cheered me up. Yet his massive (and ever-growing) discography was difficult to wrap my head around. That sparked my curiosity to hear and write about every Sun Ra recording I could get my hands on (official and bootleg), a task for which my law-office research skills turned out to be immensely helpful. Also, while I especially loved the Choreographer's Workshop period (1962–65), it was scattered across myriad Saturn releases. Sun Ra Sunday became a way to gradually map that part of Ra's discography. Inevitably, of course, the research and writing explored deep into Sun Ra's recorded cosmos. And therein lies the burnout. But it was quite a run while it lasted. An alternate PDF of all the Sun Ra Sundays was compiled by my friend and musical colleague Sam Byrd, who arranged the posts in discographical order. I had thought about self-publishing, even in its incomplete form, but never got it together. I'm happy for this work to be available to a wider, more interested audience. Thank you so much for your kind words in the introduction as well as for the all the work you've done formatting and correcting the text. I am honored. Rodger Coleman November 2018 INTRODUCTION Rodger Coleman and I have a long history together, dating back to the late 1980s in Boston with our band UYA. I had been aware of Sun Ra for some time before that—I had a few LPs but was not yet attuned to them. Rodger set me straight, encouraging me to check out Ra again—and I'm so glad he did. When he first started writing about Ra, Rodger often focused on the Choreographers Workshop era, but it soon became clear that his ambitions were much higher than that. Week after week, blog readers were treated to an incisive chronological romp through Ra's recordings, with Rodger doing a great job contextualizing them, leaning heavily on John Szwed's Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra for historical details but depending on his own finely attuned ear to provide a unique perspective on the music itself. My humble involvement was only as a friend and a fan. I didn't comment nearly as much as I wanted to. It's a busy world. After Rodger ended the series, I occasionally tried to talk him into revitalizing the feature, but to no avail. After it was apparent that there were to be no more Sun Ra Sundays, I took it on myself to grab all the postings and put them in a file. The version I compiled was both a labor of love and the fulfillment of a selfish practical need to have it all in chronological order for easy lookup in my ongoing journey of studying and learning about this music. I then printed it with Lulu and have a much-prized and well-thumbed copy of Sun Ra Sundays. I'm so glad Irwin has taken the initiative to put this compilation together and circulate it. Now you too can have it all in one place; after all, Saturn research continues. Sam Byrd December 2018 SUN RA SUNDAYS SePtember 1, 2008 Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Research Arkestra: Black Myth / Out In Space (MPS) Recorded live Donaueschingen 10/17/70 & Berlin 11/7/70 It's after the end of the world! Don't you know that yet?! SePtember 28, 2008 Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Myth Science Solar Arkestra: On Jupiter (Art Yard CD) Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Myth Science Solar Arkestra: Sleeping Beauty (Art Yard CD) These two 1979 Saturn sessions present Sun Ra at his most accessible – groovy, dreamy, spacey, and suitably cosmic while reigning in the full-blown freakouts that can make Sun Ra’s music difficult for some (or maybe not quite the right thing on a Sunday evening). That is not to say that these are lesser albums. Quite the contrary! This is simply beautiful music! Essential! Note that these CDs are extremely limited editions and sparsely distributed. I got mine from Downtown Music Gallery. See also Lanquidity (Evidence). October 26, 2008 Sun Ra & His Solar Arkestra: Secrets of the Sun (Atavistic ALP266 CD) Atavistic continues to make the rarest of the rare Saturn records available once again and to a mass audience all thanks to John Corbett’s “Unheard Music Series.” Rejoice! In fact, Secrets of the Sun is so rare, that the CD had to be mastered from a vintage LP, with its occasional (but inevitable) pops and clicks. But don’t let that stop you! This is primo Sun Ra, recorded in rehearsal at the Choreographer’s Workshop in New York City, where the relaxed vibe (free rent!) and pleasant acoustics inspired an amazing run of albums from 1962-1964. Many of those titles were (thankfully) re-issued by Evidence in the 1990s but this nearly-lost 1962 session is a most welcome addition indeed. Listened to chronologically, the Saturn LPs recorded during the Choreographer’s Workshop period exhaustively document the evolution of the Arkestra from the tightly arranged big-band material found on The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra (Savoy, 1962) to the adventurous and edgy avant-garde weirdness of Heliocentric Worlds, Vols.1-2 (ESP, 1965). As such, these Saturn records are some of the most intriguing (and downright pleasurable) albums in all of Sun Ra’s vast discography. Emerging from its decades-long obscurity, Secrets of the Sun presents a missing link in the history of this period. The smallish ensembles are simply recorded (in mono) in a lushly reverberant ambient space which gives the recordings a suitably unearthly quality that epitomizes that “Saturn Sound” so unique to Sun Ra’s home-brewed record label. The opening track, “Friendly Galaxy,” is typical in how it constructs a whole other world in miniature: the unusual frontline instrumentation (bass clarinet, flute, flugelhorn, and the rarely-deployed electric guitar) creates beautifully floating melodies and ethereal textures while the agile and propulsive rhythm section of Ronnie Boykins on bass and Tommy Hunter on drums combine with Sun Ra’s off-kilter piano to provide a buoyant and supple ostinato accompaniment. Individual solos briefly take flight before returning to the theme and ends, appropriately, after a mere four minutes and fifty-three seconds. Brilliant! “Solar Differentials” takes things a bit further out with “space bird sounds," “space voice," and primitive electronic echo and feedback (remember, this is 1962!), all of which is punctuated by Sun Ra’s percussive stabs on the piano. Ronnie Boykins once again shines with his rock solid bass anchoring the chaotic proceedings. “Space Aura” is slightly more conventional, beginning with a march-like processional before giving way to a relaxed swing, with everyone contributing pithy but exploratory solos – Pat Patrick’s honking and squealing baritone saxophone being a particular delight.