Magic City

Sun Ra | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 25, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Evidence
• ASIN: B0000014KK
• Also Available in: Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,934 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #64 in Music > Indie Music > Jazz > Avant-Garde

Track Listings

1. The Magic City

2. The Shadow World

3. Abstract Eye

4. Abstract 'I'

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some Truly Great 20th Century Music: Too Good To Ignore, November 14, 2001

By 

Timothy Dougal (Madison, Wi United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Magic City (Audio CD)

I'm not going to compare "Magic City" to other jazz albums of the 60's, because it deserves a wider audience than only Sun Ra fans or free jazz afficionados. This album is distinct and amazing even in Sun Ra's eccentric ouevre, and it is without peer. If you appreciate the myriad attempts of 20th Century composers to reach the musical outer limits, such as those of Webern, Berg, Stravinsky, Varese, Bartok, Messiaen, Boulez, Zappa, etc., this is an album you will want to hear. Its textures, sonorities, and extremes of mood, from humor to terror and dread, put it in the august company of every musician who has put a soundtrack to consciousness and creation, to science and synthesis, to form generating itself in pure music. Get it!

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I can't believe nobody's reviewed this CD before!, December 18, 1999

By 

Eric (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Magic City (Audio CD)

This CD is amazing and while I see 13 reviews for Eric Dolphy's "Out to Lunch," I see no reviews for this cd. This seems to show that people just buy those other albums because they're considered so good (and controversial), but never bothered to delve deep into the vein of free jazz, and this album is one of the greatest in that vein. Sounding harsh at times, this album ebbs and flows like no other. The continuously playing clavioline gives the album a constant theme of eerie unknown, like space, or another world. Yet it always manages to come back to sounding earthly. While Eric Dolphy was amazing and monumental in the same area, he never seemed to have the drive that Sun Ra did, who constantly made his musicians rehearse. This album is amazing and I highly recommend buying it for anyone who seriously listens to jazz, or any kind of music (if you want to have a better life, listen to a wide variety of music, that way you find out what you like.) The Magic City engulfs you and causes you to see things you wouldn't normally see. The songs not only are monumental in their sound, but monumental in their ability to represent visual themes, such as outer space and "the Magic City" itself, Birmingham Alabama. Listen to this CD at your local store, then buy it if you like it.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Otherworldly, December 27, 1999

By 

Guy Berger (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Magic City (Audio CD)

This is not the place to start in avant garde jazz. In fact, I suspect that plenty of perfectly reasonable, open-minded jazz fans will never get into this album. Unlike more accessible albums in the genre (Eric Dolphy's _Out to Lunch_, Ornette Coleman's early albums, John Coltrane's recordings between '61-'65) there's not much for most listeners to touch base with here. Harmony, rhythm, and melody are fleeting; the second half of the epic title track, which features extremely discordant horn blowing, will scare off 99% of the reasonable people.

If you're not completely scared off by this, I strongly recommend buying this album; the title suite is an incredibly intense collective improvisation: Sun Ra plays his eerie clavioline while Marshall Allen manically toots his piccolo and Ronnie Boykins does some killer bowing. Finally the rest of the band joins in to what may be some of the most intense and challenging fifteen minutes ever recorded. It truly is from outer space. The second half of the CD is full of shorter pieces that aren't quite as mind blowing but are still remarkable.

Get it if you dare.