1. And Otherness – (5.10)
2. Thither and Yon – (4.01)
3. Adventure-Equation – (8.26)
Side B:
1. Moon Dance – (6.34)
2. Voice of Space – (7.42)
Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy is an album by the American Jazz musician Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra. Recorded in 1963 but not released until 1967 on Sun Ra’s own Saturn label, the record has become one of the most discussed of Ra’s New York recordings
Originally released in a sleeve with a Sun Ra doodle, the better known cover, designed by Richard Pedreguera, was in place by 1969.
The album has increasingly been discussed within the context of anticipating psychedelia or pointing towards the funk of George Clinton;
Clinton’s astral ritual seems as inspired by the Nation of Islam as it is by Sun Ra, and when asked about the Ra in 1979, Clinton said:
“This boy was definitely out to lunch – the same place I eat at.”
Bass – Percy Heath
Drums – Albert Heath
Flute – Albert Heath
Piano, Kalimba – Stanley Cowell
Reeds [Maimoun] – Albert Heath
Saxophone, Flute – Jimmy Heath
Tracks:
1-Warm Valley
2-Tafadhali
3-The Watergate Blues
4-Maimoun
5-Smilin’ Billy Suite Part I
6-Smilin’ Billy Suite Part II
7-Smilin’ Billy Suite Part III
8-Smilin’ Billy Suite Part IV
JAZZ CATS… go do your math and the research on the Heath Bros.
SYNDROMES was a tape given to me around 1997 the tape was made circa 1996. I met Jason “Jrocc” Jackson summer of 1996 in Cerritos. The city wasn’t aware of the little mecca that it would become in the years to come as some of the most talented djs in the world would call it home. But Jrocc was not from Cerritos. I’ll leave that as a mystery if you don’t know.
Syndromes is not your regular Hip-Hop mix tape, because is not pure Hip-Hop is Jazz. An eclectic mixture of songs from various Jazz icons like Roy Ayers, Freddie Hubbard, David Axelrod and other Jazz figures that producers have sampled and would sample in the years to come.
The tape was a blue print for my journey into the art of digging records. This tape exposes me to a different sound in where I found a new inspiration for collecting vinyl records. I was not familiar to a mature sound, as Jazz is to me. Nevertheless it didn’t take to long for me to appreciate more of the versatile music world in which I was encountering as I found places and spots to dig. Thrift Shops was the 1st choice during the late 90’s.
Jrocc photo by June22
From the moment the tape is play to the end of the cassette is a continues journey into a time capsule of Jazz’s most beautiful sounds.
I’m not kidding, I would take the tape j-card cover with me every time I dug for new records. From thrift shops to garage sales to flea markets… I had the idea to get every single LP on that tape… Ah! Eddie Kendricks’ “Intimate Friends”… Uff! that sound took me to a whole different level of listening to music via records. It was my new thing, my new kind of herb. Diggin’ became the past time thing for me on a personal level. To find an old sound that can still be related to our present times.
Jrocc was asked by friends and peers to bring the tape back. He did! … Some time around the mid 2000’s Syndromes remix was dropped. It had about 75% of the same content as the original version, but with additions of some of the songs sampled in Hip-Hop. Like Tribe Call Quest, KRS 1 and others.
Jrocc photo by Renz De Madrugada, Sao Paulo BR.
Personally it don’t compare to what I was given in 1997, but the remix still a favorite till this day. There is also Syndromes II, but that is an entire different story. For now…
“That is what Syndromes tape (original version) means to me”
Touted as the most controversial film since The Birth of a Nation, The Cry of Jazz–a 1959 film essay on the spiritual status of blacks in America read through the structure of jazz music–was framed as a response to the consequences of racial division and oppression made clear in D.W. Griffith’s Klan-centered portrayal of post-bellum America.
Directed by composer Ed Bland, the highly stylized Cry of Jazz features a very early Sun Ra (then known as Le Sun Ra) with his Arkestra demonstrating the film’s argument: that rhythmic form and harmony in jazz are emanations of the restraint and the futureless future suffered by blacks in America, while melodic improvisation and rhythmic conflict are the joyful freedom and liberating deification of the present, which cry out despite the conditions of constraint.
The film, as you can watch in four parts below, famously ends with the controversial claim that jazz, like the ‘negro’ in America, is dead. Filmed at the cusp of post-bop, the film’s conclusion cannot account for the explosion of post-bop, modal jazz and free jazz (not to mention the funk, soul, samba, etc. of the coming decades). And it is worth noting that John Gilmore, saxophonologist for the Arkestra, was giving Coltrane informal lessons around the time of the filming, in the late 50s. And in addition to this, around the time this film was made, Sunny Ra pulled his ‘going electric,’ recording “India” on the album Super-Sonic Jazz–introducing the electric keyboard (a Wurlitzer) to jazz music. Perhaps every faithful congregation needs an occasional theothanatosy to remind them whose job it is to keep the heavenly creature alive.
Debuting April 3-9, 1959, in Chicago, the film is being screened April 9, 2010, at the Orphan Film Symposium put on by the Tisch School of Arts in New York City. Register now, their website warns, Seating Is Limited!
Whether you buy into the larger argument or not (that is: repeated concatenating chord sequences like the chains of enslavement, with bursts of improvisation a kind of cry from the field), the foreground of the vivid present, the image of man peculiarly sensitive to that present, and the liberating energy of the polymetric conflict between the strength and length of musical stresses in response to that sensitivity, are observations relevant to any outlook on creativity in today’s world, especially (it seems to me) to the poet’s.
Directed by the young composer and vibraphonist Guillermo Rifo, Aquila group became known in history as the first substantive draft in the encounter of jazz with popular music and music learned. As a legitimate and hybrid chamber ensemble, Aquila found his role in a variation of style and creative point of view not only survived long in the Chilean music but became one of the strongest branches in the past 30 years: merger. Since 1965, a 19-year Gillermo Rifo performing in the percussion section of the Symphony Orchestra of Chile. In 1969 he founded the Percussion Group of the Catholic University and in 1971 he was already experimenting with the vibraphone (melodic percussion instrument) in the jazz language, in concert with the brothers Roberto and Mario Lecaros Lecaros, following classical and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo and Milt Jackson. His constant drive toward the rediscovery of popular music led him to meet with drummer Sergio Meli, who had played until 1969 with Lecaros in the Village jazz group Trio. As the epicenter of musicians who frequented the house pianist to play Matias Pizarro and live jazz fusion group, the stronghold of Rifo and Meli to organize Aquila, was set in the disco Rosso Nero Apumaque at the mall, which opened spaces for jazz on Mondays of each week and whose owners were Meli himself and pop singer Paolo Salvatore. In 1973, Aquila completed as ordered as a quintet with a diversity of influences. It was led by the vibraphone Rite, whose origin was in classical music, and background of Sergio Meli, drummer for the generation of modern jazz, and also had the addition of alto saxophonist Sandro Salvati (who had just gone through the prototype Fusion), electric pianist Guillermo Olivares, until 1972, member of rock band Embrace) and electric bassist Williams Miño (with experience in popular music). Aquila released their only album, Aquila (1974), through the label Alba, incorporating compositions related to the merger mostly belonging to Rite, as well as creations of other members of the quintet and pieces from the modern jazz of Pharaoh Sanders and Herbie Hancock. He closed his active life quickly after a few appearances on underground and cons of a city curfew. Although, as noted by Alvaro Menanteau Chilean musicologist in his book History of Jazz in Chile (2003), in that short time Aquila reached a foundational category in the line of instrumental music mixes. After the fall of the curtain, Guillermo Rite continued to develop its popular vein musically directing Hindetmith Sexteto 76 (1973), chamber ensemble learned that delved into the folk roots music, and then lead the group electro Latinomúsicaviva (1978), one of the most significant projects of the merger Latin American man.
This is an original MONO pressing of an Arabic Eastern Jazz LP
Cleopatra was synonymous with all things exotic since the memory of red blooded man was first recorded. Her famed beauty and charm are legendary. In this album of oriental music, we have recreated the musical atmosphere that surrounded the fabulous Cleopatra where ever she went.
The aura of lush living is confirmed via the sensuous sound created by native musicians playing the authentic instruments of the time of Cleopatra.
Dancing girls with mysterious motions, stir gentle breezes with their perfumed veils as they sway to the strains of this, the most exotic music of all time.
Imagine yourself bedecked in golden finery, attended by gleaming Nubians whose only mission is to cater to your every whim, and you will have completed the picture of “The Music of Cleopatra on the Nile”.
On Oct 4th, 2009 Gil Scott visit Los Angeles to stop at EL REY Theater for one of his tours’ presentation. Along with Orgone Band and Dj Jeremy Sole (AfroFunke), Gil gave us some stand-up comedy and a bit of what is happening in his life. His Book about a performance with Stevie Wonder that took off to be an all year round tour in tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., his problems with the law and addiction, as well as his new CD / project out in a few months. Gil gave us himself and more… It was a blessings seeing the legend on stage and healthy than ever. “The Revolution will not be televised”
Listen Recovery 