The weekend of January 29 - 31, 1988 - The Arkestra's three night stand at The Knitting Factory, NYC, produced some amazing music. Saturn's Hidden Fire 1 & 2 are from these dates as is the 2nd half of this Leo Records release. This same track (which took up one side of Hidden Fire 2) resurfaced on a tape sold to Leo Records; there the title was given as "My Brothers the Wind and Sun #9," and the provenance was incorrectly given as a concert in Europe in 1990. Leo reissued this track in May 1995 as part of the reorganized CD LR 149, A Night in East Berlin.
503. [348] Le Sun Ra and his Cosmo Discipline Arkestra
From The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra 2nd ed.
503. [348] Le Sun Ra and his Cosmo Discipline Arkestra
From The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra 2nd ed.
(click to enlarge)
Sun Ra and his Cosmo-Discipline Arkestra
A Night in East Berlin/My Brothers the Wind and Sun N.9
1. Mystic Prophecy 10:11
2. Beyond The Wilderness Of Shadows 2:23
3. Prelude To A Kiss 2:59
4. Space Is The Place / We Travel The Space... 3:29
5. Interstellar Low Ways 8:23
6. The Shadow World 9:04
7. Rocket Number Nine 1:44
8. My Brothers The Wind And Sun No. 9 20:49
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Duxiland, a kind and generous Adventure-Equation reader shared with us a link to his mp3 320k copy of a recording from 01/31/88. The file includes a short excerpt of Sun Ra's lecture and some "untitled" music that will send shivers. Amazing performances, to be sure. Chris Trent mentions in the CD notes above that additional material was recorded this weekend and may someday see the light of day. We can only hope, eh?
Here is some additional info from The Earthly Recordings regarding the Berlin date from which some of this release is culled…
ReplyDeleteFriedrichstadtpalast, East Berlin, June 28, 1986
The opening 45 minutes from this concert were broadcast (in black and white) on the East German TV network DDR1 as Jazz Buhne Berlin in 1988; the rest was broadcast later that year on the same network as Jazz Buhne Berlin: the second part of the concert. According to Armin Büttner, the concert was actually shot in color, and color videotapes probably still exist. There is also a 60-minute radio broadcast that ran from the opening to "Space Is the Place"; thanks to Gilbert Hsiao for bringing this to our attention.
Some of the tracks (approximately 38 minutes worth) were issued in September 1986 on a Saturn cassette (no number) titled A Night in East Berlin. The cassette was sold at Arkestra concerts through 1990.
In 1987 the same tracks (but in a different order: "Interstellar Low Ways" was inserted after "We Travel the Spaceways") were reissued on Leo LR-149 [LP and CD] -- except that the Leo omitted the track titles previously supplied by Saturn! Also, the opening piano solo from "Beyond the Wilderness of Shadows" is included on the Saturn cassette but edited out of the Leo issues. The 1987 CD also included Arkestral performances from 1977, which are now part of A Quiet Place in the Universe.
In May 1995, Leo LR-149 reappeared on CD with these same tracks in the same order as the first Leo (but now given track divisions and the original titles) with a different coupling! (Instead of the 1977 tracks, the coupling came from January 30, 1988). On this CD reissue, "Mystic Prophesy" is marked as ending before Ra's synthesizer solo (which was edited on Saturn and Leo), which was counted in turn as part of "Beyond the Wilderness of Shadows" -- without the evidence of the video, there was no obvious sign of a tape splice in that spot.
Personnel from the first-edition CD leaflet (which is rife with misspellings), corrected by rlc and ct. The CD leaflet listed Marvin Smith as the drummer -- this seemed to be a mistaken reference to Marvin "Smitty" Smith (who never worked with Ra). However, on viewing the videotape, ct discovered that the drummer was not Buster Smith, as stated in the first edition of this discography. James Jacson confirms that Marvin "Boogaloo" Smith, Buster's brother, was the drummer on this tour.
Yay, thanks a lot for this! My copy was missing track #4, and now is complete! Great post!
ReplyDeletethank you for filling in the 'kitchen gap' :-) with MBTWASN9, and for the new space to explore, namely east berlin!
ReplyDeleteI-)
Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteThanks to you both for these 2 posts. Cheers CZ
ReplyDeleteHi Rev. I appreciate all your comments and 6D, Welcome! Keep comin' back for more ('cause more's on the way).
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of the good Ra posts. I remember going to a Sun Ra concert once and he gave me a cassette of A Night in East Berlin. I don't think I have the cassette anymore, but a least this post will jog my memory some.
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