In the labyrinthine realms of jazz, Sun Ra remains an icon of freedom and progress. With his ensemble the Arkestra, in smaller group recordings and solo, the pianist, composer, and bandleader’s discography is vast. Anybody looking for an introduction to the man on freshly released vinyl or compact disc should grab a copy of Sun Ra at the Showcase: Live in Chicago (1976–1977), which is available now through the set’s producer Zev Feldman’s Jazz Detective label, Deep Digs Music, and Elemental Music. And happy birthday to Arkestra horn man Marshall Allen, who will celebrate his 100th arrival day on May 25.
Upon first exposure to free jazz, some folks are immediately drawn to its expressiveness like a moth to a brightly burning bulb. But more frequently, those who don’t just as quickly reject the style (in one of its myriad manifestations) outright are curious and cautious in their subsequent interactions with the music; they often consult liner notes, reference books, and record store experts in an attempt to get a handle on what they’ve just heard.
Of course, the recording and the artist(s) providing the introduction are crucial to this scenario. Simply put, Sun Ra was one of free jazz’s gateway artists. In an interview excerpt included in the booklet for this set, the great pianist Dave Burrell makes this observation, and as Burrell witnessed the Arkestra in concert at NYC’s Slugs’ Saloon in the 1960s, the comment is based in experience and is particularly astute.
Sun Ra’s Afrofuturism and its performance aspects certainly intensified the gateway pull of the man and his band, but it also related to how the music could encompass old-school swing and bop, get tender with a ballad, invigorate a show tune, and integrate elements of the blues. In an era where a segment of the jazz scene was controversially going electric, Sun Ra was adding synthesizers to his instrumental arsenal. That early Rolling Stone Sun Ra cover is indicative of his crossover appeal.
Wild improvisational flights regularly coincided with compositional structures allowing novice listeners to grasp on and ride. Also, the bursts of singing, the integration of spoken words, e.g. the poetic contributions of June Tyson, those group chants of “Space is the Place,” and on Sun Ra at the Showcase, the bandleader repeating the phrase “There’s only 24 years before the century of 21,” all served as a celebratory language avenue for listeners inexperienced with purely instrumental music.
Sure, for many the sounds of the Arkestra were just too far out for their liking, but the music’s foundation in traditional, i.e. “inside” styles meant that Sun Ra was never called a charlatan, at least by anybody who wasn’t just spouting ignorance or didn’t have some sort of conservative axe to grind. In the notes to Showcase, Burrell further mentions that many musicians admired Sun Ra for his ability to play inside while taking it out.
By the time Ra and his band returned to Chicago for engagements at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase their creative momentum was considerable. There was the Space is the Place film, the high profile run of albums for ABC-Impulse, and the Live at Montreux LP (recorded in 1976 and first released by Ra’s Saturn label the following year). In May of ’78, the Arkestra was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live.
At the Showcase delivers additional sweet evidence that Sun Ra was riding a peak wave of inspiration during this period. The personnel includes such Arkestra mainstays as tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, altoists Marshall Allen, Danny Davis, and Eloe Omoe, and baritone player Danny Ray Thompson, along with more recent arrivals such as trumpeters Ahmed Abdullah, Emmett McDonald, and Michael Ray, bassist Richard Wiliams, and drummer Luqman Ali.
Tyson is here along with vocalists Cheryl Banks-Smith and Wisteria (Judith Holton). Allen, Davis, and Thompson all double on flute, an instrument heard straight away in “New Beginning.” Omoe doubles on bass clarinet. The percussion line is rounded out by Eddie Thomas, Atakatune, and James Jacson (who doubles on oboe). French horn player Vincent Chancey and guitarist Dale Williams round out the Arkestra on these shows, which date from November 4th and 10th 1977 (LP one) and February 21st 1976 (LP two).
The reverse chronology makes total sense. After a slow wind up sides one and two are loaded with wonderfully cooking groove-stomp adorned with raw and forceful blowing. The trumpets really tap into that big band brassiness, plus Ra’s keyboards range from futuristic mode to flashes of prog in “Ankhnaton” and a lounge vibe in “Rose Room” (a tune associated with Fletcher Henderson, with whom Ra got his start). In “Moonship Journey” the keys even slink up to the border of soul jazzy.
The ’77 material, essentially a self-contained set, works as a fine warmup to “Calling Planet Earth & the Shadow World,” an excursion of extended skronk and wild abstraction that fills the entirety of side three. Including “Space is the Place,” and some urgent intergalactic syllabic spillage, side four just rolls, effectively highlighting the Arkestra as a one of a kind avant-garde live revue.
Here we are 24 years into the century of 21, and Sun Ra at the Showcase: Live in Chicago (1976-1977) sounds as brilliant and inspiring as ever.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
