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As acclaimed music journalist and critic J.D. Considine emphasizes in his liner notes for Lights on a Satellite: Live at the Left Bank<\/i>, \u201cpeople were more likely to have heard of [Sun Ra] than they were to have heard his music.\u201d He also notes that the one thing most \u201cknew\u201d about the music of the man from Saturn was that it was \u201cweird.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are moments on this new 2CD set that belie that latter assertion; some of it is tuneful in a conventional, mainstream way. But for the most part, the two hours of music documented on this recording of a 1978 concert in Baltimore is as defiantly strange as anything in the man\u2019s catalog.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not enjoyable. For the adventurous, the music of Sun Ra is delightfully out-there, combining jazz, Afro-futurism (before there was a word for it, as the liner notes remind us) and a wholly unbridled wackiness. The opening \u201cThunder of Drums\u201d is a case in point: less drums than synthesizer excursion, it establishes right up front that things are gonna get strange. Ra\u2019s facility on the analog instrument is exploratory and fascinating.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomewhere Over the Rainbow\u201d is the classic filtered through the sort of angular dissonance that makes one either love or despise original artists like Thelonious Monk. \u201cThey Plan to Leave\u201d features spoken word in counterpoint with sun vocals and melodic vibraphone runs; for listeners raised on rock, it feels like a more serious Frank Zappa. \u201cA Pleasant Place in Space\u201d is Ra soloing on piano, and it\u2019s among the most conventional (yet beautiful) pieces in the set.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, \u201cImages in a Mirror\u201d is equal parts big band blast and clattering cacophony. It\u2019s also a helluva lot of fun. \u201cSpace Travelin\u2019 Blues\u201d is perhaps the most accessible entry point into the album, a bouncy, piano-led tune that colors largely within the lines but has a good time doing so.<\/p>\n
Sun Ra classics figure into the set here and there. \u201cWe Travel the Spaceway\u201d chugs along with chanting mostly built around a single chord. Even when he\u2019s offering his own interpretation of a well-known tune like \u201c\u2018Round Midnight,\u201d Sun Ra makes it his own.<\/p>\n
Considine\u2019s liners, a note from Jazz Detective Zev Feldman and copious stills from Robert Mugge\u2019s Sun Ra documentary A Joyful Noi<\/i>s<\/i>e<\/i> round out a wonderful package. The set is also available as a 2LP vinyl release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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