Saturn 72579, presents Sun Ra in a unique piano trio setting with bassist Hayes Burnette and drummer Samarai Celestial, playing 'Days of Happiness', 'Magic City Blue', 'Tenderness', 'Blythe Spirit Dance' and 'God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be'. The mood ranges from contemplative to celebratory, and there is throughout the record a marvelous clarity of vision. The piano style is full of interest throughout. An excellent LP.
from Another Shade of Blue - Chris Trent
The LP rip of this outstanding and unique album is courtesy of Marc E. who also provides photos of the jacket and both record sides. Thank you, Marc!
Another absolutely amazing album that begs the question: Why has this not been reissued?!
Saturn LP 72579, God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be, was released in 1979. It has also appeared under the titles Blithe Spirit Dance, Days of Happiness, and Trio. Trio was a 1989 reissue with a new cover by the Hinds brothers. Personnel identified and location verified by Samarai Celestial, who said that this was his first recording with Ra. Charles Blass believes that overdubbing was used on this recording.
From The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra 2nd ed.Sun Ra (p); Hayes Burnett (b); Samarai Celestial [Eric Walker] (d).
Variety Recording Studio, NYC, July 25, 1979
God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be
1. Days of Happiness 7:28
2. Magic City Blue 4:48
3. Tenderness 8:33
4. Blithe Spirit Dance 10:28
5. God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be! 6:53
or
Thanks for finding/sharing this label, I-)
thanks indeed i love to hear sun ra in these rare settings
ReplyDeleteOne of my many favorite Ra albums. The title track is actually my favorite piece of music. If anyone knows of someone who plays with more depth, I'd learn to learn about them. Thanks for making these records available for people to listen to. They desperately need to be made available to a wider audience. Folks think they know all about Sonny and then they came across a stunner like this. Sublime. Transcendental.
ReplyDeleteI am impressed. This one never caught my eye back then, indeed a treat.
ReplyDeleteRespect and gratitude for all your hard work maintaining this blog. I am with you.
Thanks guys!
ReplyDeleteRev.b, I agree 100%. It just doesn't get any better than this... I love Sun Ra's acoustic piano playing and to hear him in this intimate combo is breathtaking.
:-) posting about this album is a prime example of internet irresponsibility! :-) can you imagine if 1/2 the folks in the world heard this? :-) forget that, if 1/10th of them heard this? :-) and 1/100th of those came away with a 'hey, this is pretty good and it makes me feel nice!' :-) and they felt that way for an hour, or two, or a day, or a week? :-) or forever? :-) what if these good feelings started spreading? :-) someone asked 'why wasn't this re-released?' :-) what if it was, and folks heard it, and were affected, positively? :-) can we have a new rule - no more posting about stupendously amazing albums, okay? :-)
ReplyDeleteoh, yeah - p.s. i am almost willing to swear on a stack of still sealed saturns that on 'days of happiness', sun ra is jamming away on donovan's 'first there is a mountain'. i found myself singing '...first, there is a mountain, then there no mountain, then there is..., etc.' and finding how well those words and that rhythm fit with what he was playing during a lot of that track.
2nd p.s. - listening last night, i found myself comparing this album to 'disco 3000' in terms of energy and innovation. for me, it is better than 'disco 3000' because there i have to hunt and wait for the 'good' parts to come up. on GIMTLCEB, it is happening from the very first note of the first track and continues through out. sun ra 'unplugged'? in this trio setting, sun ra's playing is just so powerful that it cannot be stopped.
three p.s. - in case you did read this far, and may have missed it, i am kidding about the 'new rule' thing. posting about an album like this is what makes this space so great!
I-)
four p.s. - i am so excited by this that i forgot my manners! thank you marc e. and yotte for posting about this album!
ReplyDeleteI-)
that 'trio' label comes from one of the alternately named releases of this masterpeice. if you look closely, you can see that it is pasted over another label. it makes me wonder what were they doing at the pressing plant that day???
ReplyDeleteI-)
There has been some very interesting discussion of this album recently at the Saturn list. Brother Cleve has provided some informative observations regarding overdubbing used on the LP and I thought his comments a great read and would make a nice addition to this post.
ReplyDeleteyes, there are overdubs - but only on the opening track, "Days of Happiness". Basically they whole album is recorded the same, that is : live - with Sunny's piano, which is heavily compressed and in mono, dead center in the stereo spectrum of the mix, as is the bass; the drums are spread around the spectrum from left to right just as if you were sitting in front of them.
On "Days of Happiness" though, there is a 2nd overdubbed piano throughout the entire piece. It's only the upper end of the keyboard. It's also in mono, but it is panned hard into the left channel, and is around 3-4db lower than the main piano. There's a fair amount of plate reverb on it, which has been eq'd so that one of the upper piano notes rings out a bit with it when it hits; in fact, the reverb crossfades over into the right channel after the note is hit; this happens close to the end. Perhaps the engineer was riding the reverb a bit, as is what happens during the last few measures of "Blythe Spirit Dance". There's reverb on the piano throughout the album, but as you note it's higher at certain places. The level of the piano, along with the ratio of compression, is higher even still on the final, title track.
Hope this helps. You might try listening with headphones, as that will clarify the overdubs easily. It's a pretty cool effect.
The following day, Brother Cleve remarked:
ReplyDeleteIt really is a very strange mix! I decided to listen to all of the 1979 recordings that were done at Varisty Studios in NYC, which resulted in 5 albums that year. The recordings are all very similar as far as mic placements and basic mix, but they are also all very different. I haven't checked "Sleeping Beauty" or "Strange Celestial Roads" with headphones yet, but "God...", "Omniverse" and "On Jupiter" all have the same drum setup -- although the drums are not mixed as loud as on "God is More...", but they are all recorded on what sounds like 6 tracks with no submix and discrete panning to each drum. The cymbals are always mixed higher than the snare and toms; sometime the kick is loud and sometimes it isn't. Oddly enough, the drums are mixed way down on "UFO", the funk track. Weird, although the electric bass is pushed up in the mix. The piano, which I'm guessing is a Yamaha grand from the tone of it, is essentially in mono, but on "God is more.." its super compressed. There's always a stereo reverb on it. But the bass on "God is..." is lost in the piano low end; it sounds like it's not even eq'd, whereas on the other albums its got great eq and very nice warm tube compression.
I'm guessing it's the same engineer on all of this. Anyone ever see any engineering or mastering credits for these records?
Samarai, it is said in The Earthly Recordings, claims there are overdubs on a track on Omniverse, but I hear no evidence of that. I know what you're saying, ihor, about thinking the overdub on Days of Happiness was leakage, as I thought the same thing at first! But it's definitely an additional track. What a concept!
thanks, yotte...I finally got a chance to listen -- this is a much better transfer than the one I have (I've never owned the LP of this) with a lot deeper bass on it. Also, the overdub on "Days Of Happiness" is reversed: it's in the right channel here, which makes more sense pianistically but I love it the other way cuz its so wrong its right. The record sounds more in phase as well, which is always the problem with vinyl reproduction (you gotta set up those turntables correctly!!) I'm hoping for a legit release of this some day, if there's a master tape somewhere!! (yeah, I know..)
ReplyDeleteHi Br. Cleve,
ReplyDeleteI wish we had a 3rd rip for comparison though I suspect you are right that the left/right channels are correct on this copy, mainly because of the more coherent phasing. I love the 'it's so wrong, it's right' idea!
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ReplyDeletethanks, Zyxirion, for the additional version.
ReplyDeleteI-)
Thanks Zyxirion! This is perhaps my favorite Sun Ra album - I'm really looking forward to giving this rip a listen.
ReplyDeleteThere's one more rip. I have no idea as to the actual source. I got it from a user named fredonline on slsk. He said he'd taken it from some private blog, I have no idea what blog it could be.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.megaupload.com/?d=39QU5FPA
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QQD0RKIW.
Very interesting notes, I never payed attention to those effects separately. :)
I listened to both myself once again and realised the difference which made my last comment seem stupid to me so sorry for the small mess. :)