Sun Ra and the Arkestra!

I love jazz, and I think most of us do. But I think we can all admit that it's a genre that is quite often riddled with pretense and takes itself far too seriously (primarily in the realms of free and expirimental jazz). So perhaps that's one reason I feel particularly drawn to Sun Ra:

Everything about this guy is just fun. His whole philosophy (or gimmick, if you're cynical) about ancient Egypt and aliens and just all kinds of funky cosmic jive...I love it all. His music is typically quirky and upbeat too, a lot of times it's straight up wacky. Plus you don't hear too many jazz artists who were playing synthesizers in the bebop days. I've read that a lot of jazz critics and historians dismiss him for that exact reason, that he was just so goofy and out-there. Still, he's undeniably influential and in my book he's right up there with Monk and Miles. Seeing him live must have been a blast:

Yeah, love me some Sun Ra! I have 65 albums... A few years ago I really listened to him a lot especially "Angels And Demons At Play", "Featuring Pharoah Sanders And Black Harold" & "The Nubians Of Plutonia". I think from there I went into Charles Earland's '70s output. Great stuff.

I've always felt that Pink Floyd-Live At Pompeii had a Sun Ra vibe.

Now that's some crazy shit I can get behind. I've always heard his name but never took the time to hear his music. Surreal stuff. Dat sax solo...

Dude's got a nice voice, too.

Akeldama wrote:

Yeah, love me some Sun Ra! I have 65 albums... A few years ago I really listened to him a lot especially "Angels And Demons At Play", "Featuring Pharoah Sanders And Black Harold" & "The Nubians Of Plutonia". I think from there I went into Charles Earland's '70s output. Great stuff.

I gotta check out some of that. He's got such a huge catalog, I've had a helluva time tracking down individual albums. So far I've only got Jazz In Silhouette, Atlantis, Heliocentric Worlds (1 and 2!) and a little "best of" package to tide me over until I can get some more. Atlantis is probably my favorite of the bunch.

Archie Shepp. He's got a great sense of humor, had a tendency to pick uncommon vehicles for free jazz improvisation (Girl From Ipanema) and was just an all-around badass instrumentalist. One of the only avant garde players whose sound was a direct descendent of the Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster school of tough tenor players.