New Sun Ra Album, Lights On a Satellite: Live at the Left Bank
Sun Ra, the legendary composer, bandleader, and cosmic pioneer of improvisational might, continues to captivate audiences decades after his passing, thanks to the ongoing excavation of his vast archival material. Lights on a Satellite: Live at the Left Bank (2024), released by Resonance Records, is a newly unearthed gem from one of his most electrifying performances, captured at Baltimore’s Left Bank Jazz Society on July 23, 1978 [see related article]. The recording serves as both a testament to Sun Ra’s visionary approach to jazz and a celebration of his band, the Arkestra, which at that time included iconic figures like saxophonists Marshall Allen, John Gilmore, Pat Patrick, and vocalist June Tyson. It is also a testament to the vibrancy of the Baltimore jazz scene at that time, a dynamism that has carried through to our days.
The performance itself is an expansive, genre-defying exploration of “space age” jazz, featuring a dynamic blend of avant-garde experimentation and jazz standards. Sun Ra’s approach to music was always fluid and boundary-pushing, and this recording exemplifies the bandleader’s unparalleled ability to guide his ensemble through complex, ever-shifting landscapes of sound. There is a lot of freeform jazz improvisation on this record, prompting me to offer some reflections on the political and spiritual dimensions of free improvisation.
There exists a profound correlation between freely improvised music and radical politics. This political dimension is intrinsically linked to the Marxist conception of art as a social function, one capable of both affirming and unsettling the preconceptions upon which social power is built. Sun Ra and his Arkestra engage in unsettling preconceptions about what jazz improvisation can be.
Furthermore, when an improviser attains an enlightened state from the act of free improvisation, further revelations regarding the divine and the purpose of existence may emerge. In a manner reminiscent of Sufi traditions, we can approach the divine, experiencing the splendor of true spirituality through improvisation. It brings to mind the music of Pakistani singer and songwriter Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, master of the qawwali, a form of Sufi devotional music, in which he communes with Allah. Similarly, the improviser engages with the divine through persistent experimentation and transformation of the sounds the improviser can conceive—enabling us to live as gods in our own bodies.
The recording opens on “Thunder of Dreams” with a blazing drum solo that blasts Sun Ra into a wild freeform solo, pitch bending electric organ, leaps and glides mimicking rocket ships zooming through the depths of outer space. His solos take you out of your body, plant you firmly on Jupiter, then rip you back down to Earth. Sun Ra is as “real” as it gets.
The chaos from the fallout of Sun Ra’s blistering interplanetary solo leads straight into the second track, which is followed by an avant-garde rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.” The Arkestra’s renditions of the standards (including “Lady Bird” and “Round Midnight,”) are not to be missed but are not the highlight of this album; the highlights come from the long sections of free-form improvisation that lean heavily into Sun Ra’s space aesthetics. The fourth track, “A Pleasant Place in Space,” features Ra playing solo grand piano. To me, his playing, his phrasing, seems just slightly akin to Cecil Taylor’s. The sixth track, “Yeah Man,” shows the Arkestra’s ability to blend and weave disparate musical styles, this one occasionally leaning into spacey pseudo-ragtime.
A special highlight is track thirteen, “Images In A Mirror.” The Arkestra takes the melody to “Images,” a personal favorite Sun Ra tune, and runs through it at blistering speeds, allowing open space for screeching and squealing sax, as hypnotic African bell patterns play throughout. This was a tune I was lucky enough to hear live in 2023 with the Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia; and as far as Ra compositions go, this one is singular in its catchy, sophisticated simplicity. The raging free improvisational exploits continue shifting from member to member of the Arkestra. This leads us to ask, ultimately, What is free improvisation? How does one engage in its practice?
This music transcends the mere conjuring of ideas from the void; rather, it is a profound reconfiguration of all previously absorbed knowledge–both musical and extramusical, encompassing linguistic, political, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Speaking as an improviser myself, and as a representative of a particular space and time, my creative decisions draw upon the unique circumstances of my life. The Arkestra utilize those dimensions of improvisation and execute them with ease.
Lights on a Satellite is more than just a concert recording; it’s a vital piece of Sun Ra’s cosmic legacy. It captures a moment of high energy and transcendent creativity, showcasing not only Sun Ra’s genius as a bandleader but also the immense talent of his ensemble. With its mixture of avant-garde jazz and reverential nods to the past, the album serves as a profound reminder of Sun Ra’s revolutionary contributions to the evolution of jazz, one that continues to resonate decades after his passing. For those already familiar with Sun Ra’s mythology and sound, this release offers an exhilarating glimpse into the avant-afrofuturist utopia he created. For newcomers, it provides an electrifying entry point into the boundary-shattering music that defined a generation of improvising musicians in new and developing jazz idioms to come.
–By Logan Perry
Logan Perry (b. 2006) is a composer and improviser, featured as a composer at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art in D.C., for his contribution to the 2023 Sound Scene Festival. Perry is an active member of the Baltimore avant-garde music scene, has been featured in Downtown Music Gallery’s newsletter for his album “Laceration Hazard”, and was awarded excellent ratings for the Maryland Music Edjucators’ Association’s Young Composer Project for his aleatoric piece “Cutting Off Your Nose To Spite Your Face.” This is his first article for the BJA newsletter.