{"id":11603,"date":"2016-10-13T05:30:08","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=11603"},"modified":"2016-10-10T11:48:24","modified_gmt":"2016-10-10T15:48:24","slug":"album-review-john-cage-meets-sun-ra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/13\/album-review-john-cage-meets-sun-ra\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: John Cage Meets Sun Ra"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cage_meets_sun_ra\"A musical summit between avant-garde legends John Cage<\/strong> and Sun Ra<\/strong><\/a> is the kind of thing that \u2013 had it not actually taken place \u2013 history might have had to invent. While the idioms within which each of these giants worked were quite different from one another, both men shared a commitment to pushing the boundaries of what was thought of as conventional art and\/or music.<\/p>\n

On June 8, 1986, Cage and Sun Ra shared billing at an event at the Sideshows storefront theatre in Coney Island, New York. An edited tape of that performance was released the following year; this new release features the complete and unedited warts-and-all program.<\/p>\n

Those who know little about John Cage tend to know at least one thing: he composed a work called 4\u201933\u201d in which he sat at a piano and essentially did nothing for four and a half minutes. That concept of silence as a sonic choice \u2013 as part of the mix, so to speak \u2013 informs a good deal of Cage\u2019s pieces at the 1986 performance. He engages in wordless vocalizations (titled \u201cEmpty Words\u201d) in which he creates all manner of odd sounds with his voice. Long periods of silence between the sounds are quite common.<\/p>\n

Music fans who have heard just a little about Sun Ra might know that he claimed to be from the outer reaches of Earth\u2019s solar system. His musical pieces on this program \u2013 \u201cUntitled Keyboard Solo 1\u201d and so forth \u2013 reinforce that idea; with a very improvised feel about them, the works are combinations of outr\u00e9 melody, synthesizer experimentation and (what will sound to many listeners like) just plain noise. But just when things get their noisiest, Sun Ra deftly pulls the music back toward something more accessible. The instruments at his disposal would seem to include piano, harpsichord, Clavinet and synthesizer.<\/p>\n

The monaural recording was made using a minimal setup of stage mics; this means that tracks like the previously-unreleased \u201cWe Hold This Myth to Be Potential\u201d feature Sun Ra\u2019s keyboards well out front, but his vocal recitation is nearly inaudible. Thankfully, the CD digipak includes a transcription of the piece and three others. \u201cThe Damned Air\u201d is a spoken word (no music) piece from Ra, and though it\u2019s hissy, his recitation can be heard. \u201cThis is the Space Age\u201d is a kind of distillation of the man\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n