Sun Ra - Jazz Center Residency - 28 CD set

[ejp626]

Holy crap! 1 week's worth of Sun Ra at the Detroit Jazz Center Residency on 28 CDs!! From our friends at Dusty Groove of course: http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=s6j...p;ref=index.php

I'm not even that into Ra, and I'm curious. I will probably refrain, but I'd love to hear about it if anyone does take the plunge.

[WD45]

I saw that at the JazzLoft site. Holy cats, that is a lot of material.

[rostasi]

Better than you'd expect sound from the soundboard

and it's got a good standards/avant mix.

[jazzbo]

This has been discussed on the Sun Ra Corner thread since last year! These are cdrs. There are a whole series of releases from the label Transparency that are sold via email or on ebay, this is about their sixth such release, all the previous being single or double cds, and this was followed by a nine cdr set.

The sound isn't as great as you would expect. But the music is great if you're a late '70s Ra fan.

[rostasi]

I just noticed Lon's response to this when it comes to the sound

and so to avoid the confusion between our answers, I was referring to sound

in relation to a collection of CD-R's instead of a professionally done "standard"

disc. Yup, better than "bootleg", but less than a "standard".

Here's a sample so you can hear for yerself:

Body and Soul

[Hot Ptah]

I saw Sun Ra several times in that period, including a Halloween night performance at the Detroit Art Museum that fall. This 28 CD set is fairly representative of what his shows were like in that period. However, I will say that across the 28 CDs, there is more percussion soloing and extended chanting by Sun Ra and the band than I ever remembered in any one show. Perhaps when they were scheduled to play more than one set a night, for a solid week, they paced themselves a bit with percussion interludes and more extended chanting than usual.

I can think back to what Sun Ra and the band looked like onstage during those chants, and that helps keep them engaging to me. I can imagine that if you never saw Sun Ra live, that the extended chants might become a bit wearisome at about CD #20.

When the Arkestra comes together and plays music on these 28 discs, it is often very memorable.