Sun Ra & Art Ensemble of Chicago

[B. Goren.]

Recently I've been listening a lot to the AEC and to Sun Ra & his Arkestra. The more I listen to these two groups I come to a conclusion that Lester Bowie and his friend listened a lot to Sun Ra's recordings and took some musical ideas from them. Of course the AEC continued to develop Sun Ra's idea and to push it to the edge of the avant-Garde, but I think the influences are clear. I'll give you an example: Please listen to *Other Planes of There* and compare it to any recording of the AEC from the late 60s. OK, the AEC was a pianoless and smaller group, but too many times the music sounds the same.

Do you agree with me or it is only my imagination???

[Guest ariceffron]

are you crazy? of course the art ensemble guys knew and were influenced by sun ra and his astro jet set arkestra. im sure at least some of them played w/ ra at one time or another. who knows for sure

[John L]

They are linked through Chicago. Sun Ra essentially launched avant garde jazz in Chicago, and the AACM picked up the Arkestra's baton.

[B. Goren.]

They are linked through Chicago.  Sun Ra essentially launched avant garde jazz in Chicago, and the AACM picked up the Arkestra's baton.

Thanks John. How could I forget that both groups are from Chicago...

I still have a lot tp learn....

[jazzbo]

I don't see any influence. The AEC is from Jupiter, and Sun Ra from Saturn. WORLDS APART.

[John L]

I don't see any influence. The AEC is from Jupiter, and Sun Ra from Saturn. WORLDS APART.

You can trace back common Plutonian ancestry.

Edited May 12, 2004 by John L

[7/4]

They share a common star.

[couw]

alpha centauri

[7/4]

you know.

[7/4]

:eye:

[couw]

[7/4]

You're whistling Space is the Place. Right?

[couw]

You're whistling Space is the Place. Right?

never really cared for that I'm afraid...

yet to find my way to Saturn.

[7/4]

You're whistling Space is the Place. Right?

never really cared for that I'm afraid...

yet to find my way to Saturn.

aw....

I have to admit it took me a while.

[Chuck Nessa]

For some people this is a serious question. Personally I think it is easy to over estimate the Ra influence on the AACM guys. Mr Blount left the city about 5 years before the AACM was chartered and most members were too young to have had much meaningful contact with the Arkestra.

I'm sure the forthcoming AACM history by George Lewis will cover this in some detail.

Edited May 12, 2004 by Chuck Nessa

[couw]

Chuck, can you estimate what the impact on the AEC may have been with respect to Ra's recordings rather than personal contact? Were they fans of his stuff or just interested public, or not interested at all, or...

[Pete C]

If nothing else, the Arkestra and the AEC were two of the most visual groups in the history of the music.

[blue lake]

Is it in the "little instruments" or pan-cultural importation of instruments into the jazz band; in the acceptance of Ornette and Ayler as launching points for solo voices; or in something else that one hears the comparison?

The way Ra organized the long concerts I heard was by large segments. He'd have an "historical" segment, for instance, where the band would play Henderson's "Queer Notions" or "Slumming On Park Avenue" and other classic jazz literature, with a special place for Tadd Dameron and Monk; there would be the sections he'd "conduct;" there'd be the space chants "work-song" part of the night; the burning collective improv segment; the camp segment, where the band would pick tunes such as "Let's Go Fly a Kite" and other things alluding to flight; there'd be a group percussion jam; there'd be places for individual soloists, for instance Marshall Allen playing "Over the Rainbow." And all of it was presented as part of a long, long sweep of music bridged together by drum solos.

The Art Ensemble appeared to me to play things in much more concentrated form, that within a single work you'd have a multiplicity of "events" which related thematically, modally or just emotionally to the pieces over arching intent. I'd always thought of the Art Ensemble saxophonists, especially Roscoe, in direct response to Ayler, Ornette and Coltrane (whereas Gilmore actually influenced Trane), and the Art Ensemble's earliest music as a direct response to New York's energy school (Ascension, Free Jazz, Ghosts) by incorporating those new solo approaches and massively thick orchestrations into a personal response that "aired out" the thick textures of energy music with afro-Eurasian impressionism.

In a sense I hear the Art Ensemble as more "modern" than Ra's band. Maybe that's not the best way to put it, but Sun Ra was a traditionalist, "Atlantis" notwithstanding. Ra was the last of the great big band leaders. At it's core the Arkestra was an evolution of the swing band; the Art Ensemble, at it's core, seemed equal parts r&b, free, bop, well, they named it: Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future. But because the Art Ensemble came into the picture when they did, they seemed to be keying off different changes in orchestration and solo approach than Ra was....?... Certainly a debatable observation as both bands over threw the accepted orderliness of the 32 bar song. Sometimes the AACM cats used crescendo as a main way of getting past accepted formal limits, and when you factor in Braxton and Roscoe's ears for 20th Century Classical music, well, that, too, seems different to me than Sun Ra.

Sun Ra didn't strike me the way Bowie did in terms of humor, in general. Bowie's humor had an edge to it; his parody could be sharply pointed ("Jazz Death"), or spastically honorific as in "Tatos Matas" (if that's the right spelling; my Nessa box is home tonight). Whereas Ra's humor seemed to me to be "entertaining." I'm getting off into generalizations here, but the point is if you really try to make this comparison, more differences will emerge than similarities, imho.

Feel free to shred that with your amazing kung fu.

Edited May 13, 2004 by blue lake

[Guest ariceffron]

I WOULD LIKE TO DISAGREE WITH YOUR POINT THAT THEY WERE TOO YOUNG---KIDS LIKED SUN RA TOO BACK THEN. I AM SERIOUS. SUN RA WAS A VISIBLE MEMBER OF THE BLACK COMMUNITIES HE LIVED IN NOT JUST IN CHIAGO BUT IN PHILLY AND NEW YORK. HE TALKED TO THE KIDS ABOUT MUSIC AND ABOUT SPACE. THIS IS EVEN SHOWN IN SOME OF HIS MOVIES BELIEVE IT OR NOT.

HAVE YOU GUYS EVER HEARD THE ALBUM: BLYTHE SPIRIT DANCE (1979)--- IT SOUNDS LIKE PRESENT DAY KEITH JARRETT TRIO.

[John L]

This is turning into an interesting discussion.

Of the top of my uneducated head, I would think that the influence of Sun Ra on the Art Ensemble would be primarily indirect through Muhal Richard Abrams and his original AACM bands. (Of course, Chuck most likely actually heard those bands! Most of the rest of us suffer from the absence of recordings.) General common themes would seem to be: the band and its music as community, Great Black Music and a fascination with its African sources, experimentation, the combination of music and theatre, and a more structured approach than was common to most "free jazz."

I would be interested in learning more about the links (or lack of) between Sun Ra and the AACM.

Edited May 13, 2004 by John L

[jazzbo]

I'm sure there are influences back and forth between these two.

I'm not an AEC fan, somehow, I've never been able to really appreciate them, maybe one day. I'm crazy about Ra. I think it's the centrality of the vision of Ra's music that is one major difference between them: sort of the difference between a composer and his orchestra (Ra) and a collective group of creative musicians doing THEIR music (AEC). . . . This has shaped their work differently at the core I think.

[Lazaro Vega]

John L:  General common themes would seem to be:  the band and its music as community, Great Black Music and a fascination with its African sources, experimentation, the combination of music and theatre, and a more structured approach than was common to most "free jazz."   

Those points are all on the money.

By saying Ra was more "traditional" I didn't mean to imply he had no audience among the young. The notion that Ra was a traditionalist in essence expands the idea of traditionalism, too, because as we all know he was OUT THERE.

The apects of Sun Ra that dealt directly with Dameron, Monk and Henderson don't seem to me to have as strong a correlation in the Art Ensemble (which isn't a bad thing, just a difference, and a percieved one at that -- I may be all wet). You hear "Old" which harks back to an earlier form, and there's a version of "Creole Love Call" on Dreaming of the Masters, but the AE's connection to the past seemed more diffuse, or catholic (small c), whereas Ra's roots as Henderson's helper at the Club De Lisa gave him a very personal connection to one of great leaders of the Swing Era.

Edited May 17, 2004 by Lazaro Vega

[Simon Weil]

Both Ra and the AECM seem to have a desire to retain form. I mean everything seems to be within form, whereas someone like Ayler was kind of finding his form in what he did. There is always a risk of chaos in what he does, even though he doesn't get there.

The other thing is that "Great Black Music" seems to find a precursor in the sort of syncretic approach of Ra. It strikes me as witty - which would make it a kind of precursor of AECM's more sardonic, existentially dark, sense of humour. But maybe I'm reading too much into that, not being truly knowledgeable about SR.

I do sense a connection anyway.

Simon Weil

[Lazaro Vega]

Thanks for putting the sense of humor from both bands into sharper focus Simon.

Last night we featured Gary Peacock on the radio program, always a good excuse to play some Ayler, and man, "Vibrations" is a hell of a record. Of course led off with "Ghosts: Second Variation" from "Spiritual Unity."

In any case, Roscoe's well quoted about his encounter with Albert Ayler in Europe and how that combined with mid-60's modal Trane ("Out of this World"), Ornette, some of Dolphy, Benny Golson and some r&b cats helped to shape and define his own sound. The players in Ra's band, just as players, seem to be coming from their own personal places and influences which pre-dates some of this activity. I mean, Marshall Allen is 80.

[Guy Berger]

For some people this is a serious question. Personally I think it is easy to over estimate the Ra influence on the AACM guys. Mr Blount left the city about 5 years before the AACM was chartered and most members were too young to have had much meaningful contact with the Arkestra.

I'm sure the forthcoming AACM history by George Lewis will cover this in some detail.

Plus, records like Other Planes of There and The Magic City weren't recorded until after the Arkestra left Chicago. How many people actually heard these records when they came out? How well distributed were they outside of NYC?

FWIW, I hear the collective improvs of the Corea-Holland-DeJohnette rhythm section coming from the same place.

Guy