Customer Reviews

Supersonic Jazz

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album and "Jazz in Silhouette" are the two which I would recommend to Sun Ra novices. It is beautiful, conventionally enjoyable, toe tapping fun, with excellent solos by John Gilmore. It features some of the earliest use of electric keyboards and extra percussion by anyone, but most of it is vigorous mainstream hard bop, but with a Ra twist to be sure. Virtually any jazz fan could enjoy this one.

The tonal colors just fly out of the music. An underheard jazz masterpiece. This is a great starting point into Ra's music, and a wonderful, deep, varied album. Discographers claim this was recorded in 1956, but it's hard to believe that. The music is absolutely timeless.

Great composition, great imaginative arrangement of those themes across a wide tonal pallette, great playing, and a mastering job that presents the music in all its glory.

buyer beware: there are 2 types of sun ra recordings. 1. great colorful big band music featuring the great saxophone work of john gilmore. (which is the category super-sonic jazz certainly falls into). and 2. experimental free-form jazz. i, personally, cannot stand the pretentious free-form stuff, but when the sun ra outfit is focused on compositions (as they are on this cd) they make jazz about as good to listen to as anybody. this is a perfect cd to introduce yourself to the best kind of sun ra. yes, sir.

Super-Sonic Jazz is not nearly as avantgarde as Suns albums became starting in the early sixties, rather this album documents Sun's earlier more traditional work. Those of you who didn't know that the master of big band free jazz could swing and play the blues you should check this stuff out. I love Sun Ra's more demanding and avantgarde material from the sixties, seventies and eighties, but this album is very cool. You can tell Sun's fancy is just begining to take flight in that he's starting to add different rhythms and instrumentation and more exotic harmony to his repetoire. The arrangements and compositions are just starting to get "out." For instance the album opener India is a bit of exotica played on electric piano. Many of the tunes use tympani and odd melody lines such as the stunning El Is The Sound Of Joy. Other tunes sound like Charles Mingus of the period but with an odd harmonic sensibility. Ra's piano recalls Thelonius Monk in his use of space and occasionally a tiny bit of Sun's Cecil Taylor-like style pokes through. But in general he swings and solos in a more traditional though harmonically advanced way. The playing by his side men is top notch. Featured are John Gilmore, Pat Patrick and Julian Priester. Super Sonic Jazz is just a really enjoyable listen of the beginnings of one of jazz's most out-there and intriguing composers. Its melodic, exotic and swinging. As a bonus it's well recorded.

Mid-50s Sun Ra with his feet in both traditional swing and bebop as well as futuristic space music. Awesome musicianship from all concerned. John Gilmore deserves much more recognition. His solos on this album are incredible!

Recently a friend asked why most of the reviews I have posted have five stars. I pointed out that the main reason is that the CDs I have reviewed are all ones that I own, and that I research very carefully before I buy anything.

The few that I give lower ratings to are usually impulse buys based on a single recommendation that have disappointed me when they clearly don't stand up to repeated listening.

Let's face it, if you own more than two or three albums by the same artist, some of them will hardly ever get played, so it is well worth while to make sure that you buy the very best work of the artists you like.

For me a top rated (five star) album has to be one that is consistently of the highest standard. It is no good if there are one or two great tracks and the rest is dross. A top rated album has to be one that bears repeated listening without getting tired of it, and it has to sound good and be well recorded. It has to be the best work of the artist in question, and it has to be excellent music in its own right.

Now what does this have to do with Sun Ra and Supersonic Jazz. Just that Sun Ra is the exception that proves the rule, in that I have several of his albums including this one. Listening to this you just forget that it is music, as Sun Ra's remarkable rhythmic and harmonic virtuosity takes you out of yourself on a journey to Eternity, or maybe it is just Saturn.

Anyway, the point is that this music is so good that attempts to describe it just lead you into nonsensical babble. Better just to buy it and hear it for yourself.

Six stars.