Two Sun Ra Artifacts, Joni at the LoC
Vintage Saturn synths & magic markers, Joni Mitchell revisits Gershwin
Switched On Ra
A couple of weeks ago, while doing research on Sun Ra’s Pathways to Unknown Worlds album, I came across two really cool items that I had not seen (or heard) before, and I thought they deserved a mention.
The first is the 2021 release Switched On Ra by Chicago based electronic music (in the best possible sense) trio Bitchin Bajas. The Bajas are an offshoot of the band (also Chicago based) Cave, a group that is often described as having a strong Krautrock affinity, but whose music is essentially minimalist guitar grooves with overlaid rhythm and sonic experimentation. Guitarist Cooper Crain initially recorded Bitchin Bajas releases himself, releasing them as EPs and cassette only recordings. Along the way he added Dan Quinilivan (from the group Mahjong) to provide texture with additional guitar and synthesizer parts, and Rob Frye (also of Cave) to add saxophone and flute as well as additional guitar when needed.
The group first recorded Ra's "Angel and Demons at Play" on their 2017 release Bajas Fresh. The group obviously has an affinity with Sun Ra, and they likely enjoy playing with his musical ideas, so it makes sense that they recorded more of his work. Switched On Ra is available as a digital album and cassette album (vinyl copies sold out quickly). Crain talked to Aquarium Drunkard about the album and its genesis in a recent interview:
"We had messed around doing some of his songs live, and then we recorded one for the Bajas Fresh album. We did “Angels and Demons.” So, we were already kind of experimenting with that. Then when we wanted to do something fun while we waited for Bajascillators to be made, Dan had this idea. We just did it in a month. It was so fun and enjoyable. We all had listened to his music individually and as a group for a long time, and we picked out a bunch of songs. It was a really fun project. We do it live sometimes, and that’s super enjoyable. I’m amazed how wide the audience is for that record, but it’s not surprising because his tunes and his melodies are so great." https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2022/11/28/bitchin-bajas-the-aquarium-drunkard-interview/
If you are some kind of free jazz purist or Sun Ra purist, then you might find something to complain about on Switched On Ra, but you'd be alone in the corner. The arrangements and the reference points on Switched On Ra are different than their original Arkestra counterparts--for example, the Bajas' interpretation of "Moon Dance" is part Frippertronics and part Air's "Moon Safari," while Ra's is more 'Night In Tunisia.' But they share a deep, late night ritual vibe.
Perhaps the group's most radical reimagining is their take on "Outer Spaceways Incorporated." The Arkestra's performance features some fairly fierce collective improvisation as well as a space chant (chanting having become a regular feature of Sun Ra's output by this time) and Ra's Ellington-by-way-of-Monk piano. Bitchin Bajas version is pure Kosmische musik, with a vocoder taking the place of the Arkestra's chanting, riding a sparkling path of synthesizer bubbles.
It all makes sense when you look at Ra's considerable discography and realize that he incorporated many different keyboards in his work, including synthesizers, organs, electric piano, and a few novelty items. Their electric current fits in with Ra's space mythology and the Afrofuturistic titles and cover art of many of his fifties and sixties records.
Sun Ra: Art On Saturn
Speaking of cover art, the artwork that adorned the covers of Sun Ra's Saturn records was distinctive and noticeable. Most jazz records went with one of three cover images: a piece of classic artwork, a picture of the artist, or a pretty young woman. Ra, predictably, didn't typically fall into any of these categories. The images on the 70 Saturn albums he released between 1958 and 1988 featured modern space age imagery beside ancient Egyptian iconography and interplanetary scenes. As artnet noted in its article on the book, "They continued to lean into such themes as Egyptian mysticism, space, and Black nationalism, drawing out Ra’s vision of Black culture as rooted in ancient traditions and bound for a cosmic future." Most would dub Ra's vision Afrofuturism, though the term wasn't coined until the year the Ra left this planet.
These covers, designed by artists such as Chris Hall and Claude Dangerfield, are all reproduced in the book Sun Ra: Art on Saturn, and that alone makes it worth the price of admission.
But what's even better is that editors Irwin Chusid and Chris Reisman have managed to unearth many of the covers that Ra and the band created with markers, photos, glue, and other arts and crafts supplies during the 1970s. Ra wanted to create a lot of product quickly to sell directly to fans and collectors at live shows and through mail order. They would have albums with blank labels and covers shipped to the band's HQ and band members would create the covers and labels by hand. Yeah, Ra was running his own record label, writing music, booking gigs, keeping his band together and recording as well as creating his own artwork and selling his music directly to listeners with no middleman for a huge part of his career.
By talking to collectors and both former and current members of Sun Ra's Arkestra, Chusi and Reisman have collected a boatload of the handcrafted artwork that the members did. Sun Ra: Art on Saturn documents an amazing collection of Black American art that deserves to be seen and appreciated. If you buy only one art book, or coffee table book, or coffee table art book, this is the one.
Joni Mitchell's Summertime
The presentation of Joni Mitchell's Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at the Library of Congress was an auspicious event, and overall it turned out very well, with fine performances of Joni's songs by a variety of artists. My only complaint would be that the songs, with the exception of Brandi Carlisle's rendition of "Shine" from Mitchell's last new studio album, all came from roughly the first third of her career. There were songs from Blue as well as from Ladies of the Canyon, all of them wonderful, it just felt odd not to celebrate Joni's jazz influences or her records from the eighties and beyond.
But the real moment that set this off from the usual celebration of a songwriter's work was the performance, by Mitchell herself, of "Summertime," the most famous song from George and Ira Gershwin's American opera Porgy and Bess. The song is familiar to most people, having been sung or interpolated by singers from Fantasia Barrino to Iggy Pop. It can be a show stopper, or it can be a meditation on boredom and waiting for a song we know well to wind through its melodic material. But Mitchell's performance of the song makes me hear it again--the lyrics, the melody, the harmonic possibilities of the chord changes--in a way that I haven't been able to hear it in years.
Of course, it is deeply appropriate that Mitchell should sing this song as the winner of the composer's namesake prize. As the LOC states: "The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song celebrates the work of an artist whose career reflects lifetime achievement in promoting song as a vehicle of musical expression and cultural understanding." George and Ira Gershwin were one of America's greatest songwriting teams. Their music resonates deeply with American culture, seeking to weave the music of its people, to create works that placed American, including African American, culture and song into the palace of fine arts right up there with their European counterparts.
George and Ira Gershwin's songs form a large part of the backbone of what has become known as The Great American Songbook, a list of songs regularly interpreted and recorded by jazz, popular, and cabaret singers: "A Foggy Day," "'S Wonderful," "But Not For Me, " Embraceable You," "Fascinating Rhythm," "I've Got Rhythm," "I've Got a Crush On You," "Our Love Is Here to Stay," "Nice Work If You Can Get It," "Strike Up the Band," "Someone To Watch Over Me," "They Can't Take That Away From Me," and, of course, "Summertime."
Mitchell has a relationship with "Summertime" that is traceable to her performance of the song on Herbie Hancock's 1997 record Gershwin's World. That was recorded at a time when Mitchell was transitioning into primarily an interpretive singer of both her own and other songwriters' material. It's a textured performance that includes performances by frequent Hancock/Mitchell collaborator Wayne Shorter (who passed away the night of the ceremony presented here) and some bright harmonica by Stevie Wonder. It's an airy performance, very different from the one that Mitchell gave at the Library of Congress.
Joni sang the song at her 2022 Newport Folk Festival performance and also at 1998's Festival in the Garden at Bethel, NY, where her band consisted of Brian Blade, Greg Liesz, Larry Klein, and trumpeter Mark Isham. It's a bit slower, more meditative performance, and Mitchell's vocal is good, but it still didn't match her performance at the Library of Congress. Through the years and repeated performances she has distilled the song down to what, to her, is its essence. That's what great singers do. How much you enjoy their work is largely dependent on how closely their interpretation of the essence of a song, their aesthetic, aligns with yours.
There were some other fine performances, but the other one that really caught me by surprise was Angelique Kidjo's joyous exploration of "Help Me." The song has never been among my favorites, but Kidjo, as she has always done, proved herself adept at adapting popular Western songs to the style and exuberance of her native Benin culture. Moreover, the pleasure she took in performing the song was palpable, even to Joni herself.
Heard his band , shook his hand , he looked me in the eye and said “space is the place”