Jazz in silhouette
| Jazz in silhouette | ||||
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| Studio album by Sun Ra | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | El Saturn, impulses! , Evidence | |||
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Format (s) |
CD, LP |
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running time |
44:08 |
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Jazz in Silhouette is a jazz album by Sun Ra that was recorded on March 6, 1959 in Chicago and was released on El Saturn Records in May of that year. Jazz in silhouette was created during a session where Sun Ra and His Arkestra also made music for the later albums Sound Sun Pleasure !! and Interstellar Low Ways . In 1974 the material was included in the Impulse! accepted; as a compact disc (and for the first time in stereo ) the album was released in 1992 by Evidence Records.
Sun Ra and El Saturn Records
The time when Sun Ra worked with his Arkestra in Chicago is passed down primarily through a group of singles and albums that (with the exception of Jazz by Sun Ra and the Sound of Joy, which was only released in 1968 ) in the mid to late 1950s were published on Ra's own label El Saturn. El Saturn was next to Charles Mingus / Max Roach's debut label one of the first record companies owned by musicians; Sun Ra's business partner was his manager and friend, Alton Abraham. After starting their business in 1955 and Super-Sonic Jazz (1956), Jazz In Silhouette was their second release. The LP appeared with the cover of an HP Corbissero , which was possibly a pseudonym for Sun Ra himself ( Herman Poole = HP).
During this period, "Ra and Abraham defined a Do-It-Yourself ethic that would later become a central part of the American independent music industry , which designed their own record covers and sometimes also made them by hand." With this process, they kept control of their publications. Saturn Records LP covers were designed by a bevy of semi-professional and amateur artists, some of whom were associated with the Arkestra. These cover designs mixed space iconography with a very personal mix of apocalyptic ideas. These covers were printed with hand-tinted metal plates from workshops in Chicago's Southside, and so the Saturn label was able to make copies of their records in unusually small numbers, on demand , sometimes as little as 20 copies of one Concert.
The music of the album
During the second half of the 1950s, Sun Ra and his Arkestra established themselves in Chicago as "impressive representatives of a new branch or subgenre of jazz" by developing from the preparation of familiar jazz standards . With Jazz in Silhouette, Arkestra presented a collection of original compositions that demonstrated Sun Ra's abilities as a composer, arranger and musician. This particularly affected the fast and complex pieces Saturn and Velvet , which are played with great skill and precision. Velvet is reminiscent of the standard Jeepers Creepers , with trumpeter Hobart Dotson as the soloist. The other extensive compositions Ancient Aiethopia and Blues at Midnight are more influenced by the soloists than by the ensemble playing. You can hear tenor saxophonist John Gilmore , bassist Ronnie Boykins , baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick and alto saxophonists Marshall Allen and James Spaulding . The flowing dialogues that Sun Ra undertakes with his musicians and his method of “leading the ensemble with the ups and downs of its uncanny mix of melody and rhythm ” are characteristic of the group sound. According to Lindsay Planer, this is the decisive “factor for the freshness that the material has retained”.
reception
The album is seen by many critics as the culmination of the early Chicago period of Arkestra , before the orchestra " fledged itself to the jazz avant-garde of the 1960s," said Lindsay Planer in his review for Allmusic ; there, Jazz in Silhouette was awarded four (out of five) stars.
Mathew Wuetrich rated Jazz in Silhouette as “an overlooked masterpiece, which makes it clear that Sun Ra is not to be regarded as a curiosity, but rather one of the most creative forces in the jazz universe, a center of gravity encircled by many decisive developments in jazz has been. "
Richard Cook and Brian Morton recognized the album in The Penguin Guide to Jazz as part of their Core Collection and awarded it the crown;
- " This marvelous record will one day be recognized as one of the most important jazz records since the war ."
Track list
Jazz in silhouette first appeared as the Saturn K7OP3590 / 1 , later as the Saturn 5786 . The specified track list refers to the CD edition Evidence 22012 . The pieces of music are arranged in the same way on the Impulse ASD 9265 LP output , but track 8 is hidden there.
- Enlightenment (Hobart Dotson, Ra) - (5:02)
- Saturn - (3:37)
- Velvet - (3:18)
- Ancient Aiethopia - (9:04)
- Hours After (Ra, Everett Turner) - (3:41)
- Horoscope - (3:43)
- Images - (3:48)
- Blues at Midnight - (11:56)
- All compositions, unless otherwise stated, are by Sun Ra.
Web links
- History of the Saturn label, with an image of the original Jazz envelope in silhouette and a description of the manufacturing process at Design Observer
- Review of Matthew Wuetrich's album in All About Jazz (2006)
Individual evidence
- ↑ According to the Sun Ra discography , this album may also have been released in 1958.
- ↑ Robert L. Campbell, Christopher Trent and Robert Pruter From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra: The Chicago Years , 2009 ( Memento of the original from April 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . According to the Sun Ra discography , however, the album was recorded in late 1958.
- ↑ a b c John Corbett Sun Ra, Street Priest and Father of DIY Jazz Design Observer ( Memento of the original from June 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c Lindsay Planer Review of the album Jazz in Silhouette at Allmusic (English). Retrieved February 12, 2011.
- ↑ Mathew Raver Album in All About Jazz
- ↑ Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz, 2006, New York p. 1245; ISBN 0-141-02327-9
- ↑ The Saturn LPs are [5] - [8] on the A side, [1] - [4] on the B side.
