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Earliest Sun Ra Sightings


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Lovely! Can’t wait to dig into this later, soon.

Been about 10 years since I last read John Szwed’s book on Ra, and I can’t remember how detailed his coverage of Sonny’s ear(th)liest exploits were. Or rather, I’m sure Szwed did a deep dive (Szwed’s book on Miles uncovered more “new info” than I’d yet ever read in any/all of the other Miles books I’d read up to that point) — but I’m wondering if he came up with most of the same stuff as here in this article.

BTW, I see there’s a new paperback edition of Szwed’s book that just came out this year, with a new preface. Has anyone read the new preface by any chance?

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I was actually listening to much of his 50's work this morning, including non-jazz cuts he laid down for 45's back in that period.  Many of them were fairly horrid doo-wop/novelty types of sides, but some were pretty good.  They all sounded (of course) like they were recorded on a different planet, but so did a lot of pop/rock/r&b stuff from the 50's, including a lot of huge hits ("Purple People Eater", "The Witch Doctor", "Sea of Love", "Stranded in the Jungle" etc etc).  And it occurred to me - what if one of those records had taken off and become a left-field hit?  Would he have become a pop record producer, and we would have been without his recorded and cultural legacy?   Just found it an interesting thought. 

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On 8/6/2020 at 0:58 PM, felser said:

I was actually listening to much of his 50's work this morning, including non-jazz cuts he laid down for 45's back in that period.  Many of them were fairly horrid doo-wop/novelty types of sides, but some were pretty good.  They all sounded (of course) like they were recorded on a different planet, but so did a lot of pop/rock/r&b stuff from the 50's, including a lot of huge hits ("Purple People Eater", "The Witch Doctor", "Sea of Love", "Stranded in the Jungle" etc etc).  And it occurred to me - what if one of those records had taken off and become a left-field hit?  Would he have become a pop record producer, and we would have been without his recorded and cultural legacy?   Just found it an interesting thought. 

where is sun ra doing stranded in the jungle?  The transpearency set he does Tequila I remember....but i dont remember those others you know- what set do you have?

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4 hours ago, chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez said:

where is sun ra doing stranded in the jungle?  The transpearency set he does Tequila I remember....but i dont remember those others you know- what set do you have?

I'm just saying that was an example of a strange sounding 50's hit and that Sun Ra's "pop" sides were also strange sounding. 

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24 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

The one of the Medallions?

Let me whisper sweet words of pismotality
And discuss the puppetudes of love
And put 'em together, and what've you have
Matrimony, oh my darling, please hear my plea

 

Edited by felser
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