Sun Ra discography & "Space is The Place" (video)

'That's How I Feel' excerpt (from "Lanquidity")

Ended up working on the Sun Ra discography all day, so come over and have a look. It's kinda massive ...

Otherwise, sit back and enjoy Sun Ra's film "Space Is The Place" (1972; released 1974; 81 mins) below.

Or just right-click download it (266mb, mp4)



From imdb.com :
"Sun Ra - space-age prophet, Pharaonic jester, shaman-philosopher and avant-jazz keyboardist/bandleader--lands his spaceship in Oakland, having been presumed lost in space for a few years. With Black Power on the rise, Ra disembarks and proclaims himself "the alter-destiny." He holds a myth-vs reality rap session with vblack inner-city youth at a rec center, threatening "to chain you up and take you with me, like they did you in Africa" if they resist his plea to go to outer space. He duels at cards with The Overseer, a satanic overlord, with the fate of the black race at stake. Ra wins the right to a world concert, which features great performance footage of the Arkestra. Agents sent by the Overseer attempt to assassinate Ra, but he vanishes, rescues his people, and departs in his spaceship from the exploding planet Earth."

soundtrack album here

Imdb reader "firewatr" comments :

"I was credited as 2nd unit director on this film. Ra was a calm, sort of surreal Buddha through the whole thing, even one time when the script called for him to be tied-up in a chair and menaced by gangsters. During the many hours it took to get this scene on film, Ra just quietly sat tied-up in that chair, so quietly that a couple of times I went over to make sure he was still breathing. He said he was fine, just relaxing on "another plain".

Near the end of the shoot, we had a nightclub scene with about 70 extras and a chorus of girls on stage. They were supposed to dance to a tune that Ra insisted on playing live on camera with his band. I had been bugging him unsuccessfully for days as to what he was going to play so that the girls could rehearse.

On the day scheduled to shoot this scene, I nervously reminded Ra again about the music. Ra smiled, casually produced some old vinyl albums done by other bands and a portable record player, and suggested that I play them for the chorus to see what they liked. I did, and they caught fire with one of the tunes. Ra said "Fine. You got any music manuscript paper?" I was ready for him. I did.

And so, during lunch break, Ra listened to the record, transposed the instrumental lead sheets to paper for his band with a few of his own alterations, and we choreographed and shot it after lunch.

For my money, Ra was a fine musician...extremely cool and really "there"."

Texts from the Internet Movie Database
Blog links to Blaxploitation Jive and El Rataz

George Cables, Jeremy Steig, Jan Hammer

After a long absence, I started lecturing back at university this week and now I'm really exhausted. This weekend's going to be sleeping and DJ-ing (hopefully not simultaneously), so no time for big new fat posts.

Instead, a couple of recommendations from my late night blog trawling from this week.


'Swamp Carol' - Jeremy Steig

I think I'd avoided Jeremy Steig's 1971 album "Fusion" because, well, the word 'fusion' always carried connotations for me of lightning-speed distorted guitars separating twenty minute bass solos - not really my thing. And it had Jan Hammer on it, who I generally associate with the same masturbatory activity, albeit on synthesisers.

So when I finally grabbed it at San Pasquale Ent. the other day. I was pleasantly surprised by its soulful funky rawness, great rhodes playing from Hammer and of course Steig's crazy flute - check it out, and also get good info and covers over at Groovy Merchant.

And then on a seemingly unrelated search ...


'Swamp Carol' - Art Blakey ft. Jeremy Steig

I came across this great live bootleg at Ubu Roi of Art Blakey / Tony Williams from Munich in 1972 - also featuring Steig on flute and George Cables on wah-wah rhodes. I'd bookmarked it before but hadn't grabbed it. Yes, there are bass solos, but good ones from Stanley Clarke. One of the highlights is a smoking live version of "Swamp Carol", which also features on the "Fusion" album - but this time you get Ray Mantilla and Buck Clarke on percussion as well.

More music from me soon, but enjoy those for now, and a fine, trashy and adventurous weekend to all of you. Also, the usual sloppy rhodes, funky beats and B3 madness can be found below this Sunday for southern hemisphere visitors ...

Sydney btw ...

Donny Hathaway - "What a Woman Really Means" (1973)

TRACK OF THE DAY


'What A Woman Really Means' - Donny Hathaway
DOWNLOAD TRACK

A Donny Hathaway track from 1973 I'd never heard ? WTF ?

A few weeks back I was talking music with an old friend, and we got to talking about how much we both love Hathaway's final studio album, "Extension of a Man" from 1973.

There's a multi-layered melancholy when listening to it - the passion of his extraordinary voice, songwriting and arrangements mixes with the poignancy of the promise that it showed, in the knowledge of the fact that he jumped off a building six years later, deep in depression.

"Yes", said my friend, "that's why that extra track from the sessions on that Atlantic comp a few years ago was like a gift, so unexpected ... "

Extra track?

"The Atlantic Unearthed comp ... unreleased tracks from Atlantic artists".

Blink.

And so I discovered that I'd missed the 2006 release of a Donny Hathaway song, coming from the same sessions as one of my favourite 70s soul albums ... Maybe I'm the last person on earth to discover it, maybe not. I decided that if even one of you haven't heard it, it's worth a post. It wouldn't have been the best track if it had made the album, but it gets me when that chorus kicks in halfways through.

Download above, 320 MP3, or just have a listen.

"Extension of a Man" link goes to "Rare & Groove Jazz"

LaMont Johnson - "Aces" (1979)

'Aces' excerpt


'Virunga Dance' excerpt

LaMont Johnson returns three years after "Nine : A Mystical Musical Allegory", and rather surprisingly - when you read his liner notes at that last post - names his album "Aces" rather than "Twelve".

In the course of those three years, he seems to have been preoccupied with his work as a kung fu movie producer and his parallel career as a rising star in the Church of Scientology, with this being his first recording since that last album. Too busy "auditing" those girls on the front cover? We may never know ...

Arkadin (check his great new blog) and I had an interesting discussion in the comments of the "Nine" post, and dug up an old Scientology brochure on ebay which describes a very alternate Johnson universe to that described in his official biography statements. Since that will disappear in a few days, I've archived the text and brochure scans here.

But back to the music : Even though the cover's been immortalised on Crap Jazz Covers, there's some good music to be found here, even if it doesn't have the range of "Nine". Johnson's mainly on piano, with some occasional rhodes and subtle synth.

I really like his piano work here - all in all, the album's not too 1979 apart from the slight overuse of reverbed space. I remember being in studios in the late 70s - we were all quite enamoured with the hastening development of reverb units, and everything sounded 'interesting' through a cloud of reverb when you wore headphones ...

The careers of the musicians are mostly a mystery to me and Google, apart from trumpet player Gary Pack, who worked on several albums with Stan Kenton. Several of the players seem to have started off with this album, but haven't gone on to a lot of high profile work.


The title track "Aces" (preview above) has been comped on one of those Kon and Amir collections. It's got a nice loping unison melody from trumpeter Gary Pack and saxophonist John Rekenics - who work really well together in general on this session - against a string synth background multi-tracked with Johnson's piano, leading to a sparse synth solo. "Virunga Dance" and "Life Is a Sweet Thing" are other nice tracks with a similar but more acoustic feel.

Generally, LaMont Johnson is reaching back to his post-bop roots in terms of his arrangements of tracks like "Second Hand Child", while the harmonic structures cross broader fields in tracks like the Kenny Barron-like "Midnite Mind Mosaic", which references Brazilian jazz changes. I'm not too taken with the presence of guitarist Bill Coleman, who really needs to turn off his damn chorus pedal (or Fender amp chorus dial, it's one or the other) - things are generally better when he's shuffled into the background. Nevertheless, some great stuff here, and the best $4 buy I've made in a while.

TRACKLIST

01. Aces (6:24)
02. Virunga Dance (4:32)
03. Nina (10:17)
04. Europa (5:00)
05. Second Hand Child (5:35)
06. Midnite Mind Mosaic (5:55)
07. Life Is a Sweet Thing (5:24)

All compositions and arrangements by LaMont Johnson

MUSICIANS

LaMont Johnson - keyboards, vibraslap
Gary Pack - trumpet, flugelhorn, afuche
John Rekevics - soprano, tenor and alto saxaphones, flute
Bill Coleman - guitar
Gunnar Biggs - contrabass
Tim Shea - drums, triangle, apito, african agogo bells

PRODUCTION DETAILS

Aces - the LaMont Johnson Sextette
A MasterScores production
Produced by Don Harris and France Johnson
Composed and Arranged by LaMont Johnson
Recorded at Western Audio Recording Studios, San Diego, California
on November 20 and 21, 1979.
Cover Design : Lalo Donfra Concepts
Production and Design Coordinator : Mitzi Lopez
Cover Photos : T.Michael Russell
Cover Photo Tinting : Lee Kromschroeder
Backliner photos : Russell Puls
Graphics : Bonkers Graphic Design, Noreen Bonker

WAV / MP3 in COMMENTS

LaMont Johnson - "Thunderfist" OST (1973)

A follow-on from the last post, LaMont Johnson's "Nine : A Mystical Musical Allegory".

Fraykerbreaks responded to my search for the promo 7" single from LaMont Johnson's 1973"Thunderfist" kung fu soundtrack (which features Blue Mitchell) and has posted it, so go grab it!

It doesn't include the movie's theme that I sourced from the VHS soundtrack, but has three great tracks on one side, and radio promos for the film on the other side. The single itself was initially just manufactured to be sent to radio stations.

Artisan Releasing Corporation was LaMont Johnson's own film production/distribution company. The music here was re-used in the 1978 Jim Kelly vehicle "Death Dimension".

Thus far, I can't find any evidence of a full soundtrack release for "Thunderfist" - the fragment of the film I've managed to see used the opening section of the Temptation's "Pappa Was a Rolling Stone" several times for action sequences after Johnson's opening theme.

Anyway head over to Frayker's Revenge ....