Customer Reviews

Magic City

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

This is an astoundingly good cd. No traditional swing or bebop stuff here; it's all pleasantly otherworldly. Enjoy the trip.

.. because I wasn't expecting crap.

I am continually amazed and confounded by jazz music, and as my jazz education has progressed, I've had to rid myself of the notion that if I hear something I don't like by a given musician, I will never like anything by that musician. Likewise, I'm learning that just because I like something by someone doesn't mean I will like all their other stuff. Many jazz artists are continually reinventing themselves and trying new and different things, and apparently, that is what Sun Ra did on one or the other of two CD's I have, this one and Jazz in Silhouette. I say that because JIS is a study in big band, swing jazz. Very dynamic and interesting. And very different from this CD. TMC is a study in using the theramin (or something that sounds like one) to make noise, and it just about puts me in therapy. This CD has its moments, and make no mistake, this is intricate and intriguing...well...not music. Sound. Sonny and his musicians sound like they are experimenting, and the result is what you would expect: a lot of sonic data that requires the listener to analyze it. There is nothing resembling a melody or harmony here, nothing that could be written on a score, nothing that you would find yourself humming while doing the laundry or cutting the grass. Also, I've visited Birmingham AL ("The Magic City") many times and live only 90 miles from there, and I would protest that I have some idea of what a CD about the city might sound like. To me, Sun Ra's version just isn't it. I suppose the silver lining to this dark cloud is that I bought Jazz in Silhouette before TMC. Had the order been reversed, there is a good chance I never would have gotten around to buying Jazz in Silhouette, one of my favorite jazz recordings of all time. So hard core Sun Ra fans, avant-garde fans, fans of the unique and unusual in explorations of sound, rhythm, and dynamics, come and get it. Jazz fanatics seeking music: please look elsewhere.

This (IMHO) is one of the finest releases from Sun Ra and the Arkestra. Accessable to the neophyte and satisfying to those familiar with Ra's music. Strong composition and execution. RECOMMENDED!