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Artist:
Sun Ra
Title:
DISCO 3000/COMPLETE MILAN CONCERT 1978

Tracks:
1. Disco 3000
2. Sun Of The Cosmos
3. Echos Of The World
4. Geminiology
5. Sky Blues
6. Friendly Galaxy Disc 2
1. Third Planet Incl, Friendly Galaxy
2. Dance Of The Cosmo Aliens
3. Spontaneous Simplicity
4. Images Incl, Over The Rainbow
5. When There Is No Sun
6. We Travel The Spaceways



Details:
January 1978 was a fruitful month for Sun Ra. As well as days spent in the recording studios in Rome, Ra, along with John Gilmore, Michael Ray and Luqman Ali, played several gigs in Italy before flyimg back to the US. The magic music from one night in the Teatro Cilak, on 23/01/1978 in Milan, is preserved on Disco 3000. In the winter of 1977-8, philosopher, pianist and bandleader Sun Ra was to be found in Italy. He may have made two trips there, or made one extended stay: at this distance from these events it's difficult to be sure. (There's usually a mystery where Sun Ra is concerned.) Sun Ra's musical activity that winter is well attested: a CD from a piano concert in Venice in November 1977, two double albums cut in the studio for the Horo label in January 1978. The Italian tour also resulted in releases on Sun Ra's own Saturn label, although the records have long been out of print and all but impossible to find. With the re-release of DISCO 3000 and MEDIA DREAMS, two of these elusive Saturn albums and arguably among the most important documents of Sun Ra's long musical career, are now once more available. They represent a real pinnacle of creativity, even for this prolific period of the late 1970s, when his record output hit a peak: 1977-8 saw some twenty Sun Ra albums, plus two video documents. DISCO 3000 and MEDIA DREAMS are pivotal: a unique chance to hear Sun Ra's music expounded in live performance by a quartet, rather than his full Arkestra. Sun Ra was joined in Italy by saxophonist John Gilmore, trumpeter Michael Ray and drummer Luqman Ali. Sun Ra himself played piano and electronic keyboards, including a Crumar Mainman. The sparse instrumentation is based on extraordinary and worthy contrasts. Luqman Ali played drums with Sun Ra around 1960, as Edward Skinner. This 1978 group represents his reappearance after an apparent absence of many years. The saxophone of John Gilmore, a soloist in Sun Ra aggregations since the early 1950s, is paired with the trumpet of relative newcomer Michael Ray. Ray's exposure as a soloist here is considerable - far greater than in his role in the Arkestra. The partnership of Gilmore and Ray, combined with the prominence and nature of Sun Ra's electronics, gives these albums their unique flavour. Sun Ra's keyboard work expands here to supply both bass lines (some pre-programmed) and electronic percussion. From this perspective it is interesting to compare this music to that on an earlier 'electronic' album of Sun Ra's, "My Brother The Wind”- Ra had developed a much wider group role for his electronics by this point.

Label: Artyard

This item was added to our catalog on Thursday 10 April, 2008