Resonance Records Releases New Recording of Sun Ra at Famous Ballroom, 1978
Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, 1914-1993) was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, “cosmic” philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Sun Ra led The Arkestra, an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.[i]
Sun Ra named himself after Ra, the Egyptian sun god, sported colorful and exotic costumes, and claimed to be an alien from the planet Saturn, come to earth to spread peace. He was a seminal figure in the history of jazz, taking the genre into new territory.
Born and raised in Alabama, Sun Ra’s career was established in Birmingham and flourished in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. He also performed often at Baltimore’s Famous Ballroom, and on July 23, 1978, Baltimore’s Left Bank Jazz Society was privileged to host his Myth Science Cosmo Swing Arkestra band there, along with a troupe of dancers.
Now a recording of that session has been released on Resonance Records, titled Lights on a Satellite: Live at the Left Bank. The album contains newly-unearthed audio from the Sun Ra Archives and was researched and compiled by Sun Ra archivist Michael D. Anderson and co-produced by Anderson and Zev Feldman. It’s an exciting follow-on to filmmaker Robert Mugge’s 1980 jazz film Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise documenting performances by Sun Ra and his Arkestra in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. It also follows Feldman’s release in April 2024 of Sun Ra at the Showcase: Live in Chicago, 1976-1977 on his Jazz Detective label.
Band members in the 1978 performance included saxophonists Marshall Allen, John Gilmore, and Pat Patrick, vocalist June Tyson, and Michael D. Anderson, who was also a drummer and percussionist. Prophetic and avante-garde, Sun Ra’s big band is heard in blistering form playing repertoire ranging from space age jazz to interpretations of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and jazz standards by Fletcher Henderson, Miles Davis, and Tadd Dameron.
Jazz critic J. D. Considine, who attended the concert, writes, “Sun Ra’s arrangement of the Tadd Dameron chestnut, ‘Lady Bird’ was a condensed history of mid-century jazz….There were African rhythms mixed with avant-garde improvisation, slapped electric bass driving classic swing cadences, and unabashed sentiment cheek-by-jowl against transcendental consciousness.”
Weighing Sun Ra’s impact on jazz, saxophonist Gary Bartz, a Baltimore native, says, “Sunny confirmed that we need to be free as musicians. You can’t get hung up into a genre or a style.” Pianist Craig Taborn adds, “So many people revere him now. His approach was so comprehensive to the Black music experience as a whole. He delivered a commentary on so much of what had happened before and what was going to be happening that it applies itself across time. That’s why I think his music has so much traction now 30 years after he passed.”
Saxophonist and flautist Marshall Allen, who marked 66 years as a member of the Arkestra on his 100th birthday on May 25, reflects on Sun Ra’s trailblazing methods as a bandleader: “When Sunny was playing, he’d play four bars, and if you didn’t have the music, he’d switch it, he’d play another song, so you had to remember all this music. And then, when he played four bars, I’d come in. If I didn’t, he’d switch the number, and by the time you found that number, he’d be in another one. Above all, you had to be sincere to do what he wanted you to do.”
The limited-edition 2-LP set of the album was available at participating record stores as of November 29th, and the deluxe 2-CD and Digital editions are available as of December 6th at ResonanceRecords.org. More info at https://lnk.to/SunRaLeftBank. The deluxe package includes rare photographs from photographers Jean-Pierre Leloir, Alan Nahigian, Veryl Oakland, Christian Rose and others; liner notes by veteran music critic J.D. Considine and Zev Feldman; plus interviews with the centenarian saxophonist Marshall Allen, NEA Jazz Master saxophonist Gary Bartz, and visionary pianist Craig Taborn.
–By Liz Fixsen, based on the press release by Zev Feldman and Robert Mugge
[i] Wikipedia