Sun Ra

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Anybody here a fan of Sun Ra? Since we have Amon Ra, I feel this is an appropriate correlation, kind of.

Anyway, Sun Ra was a sometimes very out there jazz composer/band leader, and I do believe he thought he was a descendent of an alien culture from Saturn. Really interesting guy.

For those into the avante garde jazz, check him out. He has a ton of recordings but if you are just starting, Strange Strings, Night of the Purple Moon, space is the place, the futuristic sounds, are good places to start. Anyone who is more knowledgeable about jazz please feel free to correct me if wrong… but all his stuff is a trip. I recommend listening with headphones, and no drugs/alcohol necessary. Just listen. Some very beautiful compositions

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Thanks man. I just told Alexa to play Night of the Purple Moon and it works. It fits the tree-dappled daylight spilling in through the blinds

Drinking a cold one on the couch with Demon Weasel until the wife gets home from a bike ride then swimming at a friends place today. Hope you’re all having an equally or more pleasant Sunday

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Nice! Hope you are all well as well! Having an Oberon and will switch to some wine at some point maybe… enjoy your Sunday! And enjoy night of the purple moon!

Edit: we don’t get those cool west coast beers out here in MI :wink: well some of them, but not all… cheers dude!

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This is one of our Hazy IPAs. I’ll bring some next time I fly out. I am envious of your Oberon though

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Also beautiful cat by the way

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You know it’s funny I don’t typically like wheat beers, but I do like Oberon. Might be a nostalgia thing for me, I don’t know. But I used to drink two hearted all the time, and at some point I just stopped liking IPAs, I don’t know what happened but I just don’t like the taste anymore.

But if you come out with some west coast beer I’ll happily hook you up with some Oberon or whatever. Let me know. They also started distributing 3 Floyd’s here too, so let me know!

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Are you in the Grapids? I am due for a trip back to see family. Maybe we can convince @Weaselpuppy to join. And whomever else is in the area

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I’m in canton now, so SE Michigan, GR is about 2 hours from me. But if we arranged something I don’t mind the drive!

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Sun Ra is very trippy and very cool. Notnsurenif he was always avante garde, or at least that far out. Thought he played w Miles Davis for awhile.

Ive been to Canton twice this summer on cases. Construction on Canton Center Rd really hosed me last time.

Beautiful Hindu temples…

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Oh man, the construction on canton center sucks… and I hear they are going to totally redo Ford road, which I very much support but don’t look forward to the construction, but in the end I imagine it looking more or less like Telegraph in Dearborn, which it needs to be. It’s just too busy of a road and accidents happen there every day.

If you are ever in canton again let me know I’ll buy you a beer or a coffee or whatever!

And I was interested to hear your thoughts on sun ra because yeah, some of his stuff is not out there, but then some of it to me is way out there. Although John Coltrane really defined the avante garde jazz to me, and I’ve learned a ton just by reading music theory stuff about his approach to composition. Not that I totally understand or can implement it but it makes sense, if that makes sense

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Coltrane and Giant Steps. Not much better than that.

No Miles Davis, but lots of “names”…and thrn there is this from Wiki…

In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands’ songs from memory.

That is some straight up Maybe he is From Saturn type of Shit. Unbelievable.

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People who are able to transcript and compose whole music performances from memory is mind blowing. I’ve read stories about Mozart and Beethoven as kids just being able to see a concert and going home and being able to play from memory what they heard once.

Giant steps by Coltrane is amazing. His ability to seamlessly transition through keys and never actually play in any key signature is crazy. “Key of the moment” as my jazz teacher would tell me.

But this is just really amazing and still trying to wrap my head around it

My biggest takeaway is that diminished chords are everything, you can go anywhere where you throw in a diminished chord… but it’s still incredible how he composed and navigated it

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Heaven is where you’ll be when you’re OK right where you are…Sun Ra

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Just stumbled across this. You might appreciate this book:

jazz

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OH SHIT!!!

I am soooooo on this

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OK, as always, Yogi has it…

http://www.ejazznews.com/modules.php?op=mo…order=0&thold=0

Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?

Yogi: I can’t, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they

never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it’s wrong.

Interviewer: I don’t understand.

Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.

Interviewer: Do you understand it?

Yogi: No. That’s why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn’t know anything about it.

Interviewer: Are there any great jazz player alive today?

Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead.

Interviewer: What is syncopation?

Yogi: That’s when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don’t hear notes when they happen because

that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they’re the same as something different from those other kinds.

Interviewer: Now I really don’t understand.

Yogi: I haven’t taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.

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Is it like “The Coltrane Changes actually open a Stargate to Altair 6???!!”

Because, yeah, they probably could. Close Encounters dah-dah- dah-DAHHH-dahhhh was a dumbed down version of the idea that didnt blow the public’s mind like Coltranre would.

Maybe it’s like “Kurt Elling’s ego creates a local singularity wherever he gets a chance to get on stage and talk about himself in thr middle of a standard he is on the fly changing because I’M KURT ELLING”

Maybe they are replacing the Planck Distance with the Ella hitting the exact effing microhertz center of every scat note in double time, every time, ever…Distance…cause she was perfect.

Ok…Ill calm down…

Later.

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no one likes jazz any more. it’s too popular

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Another Yogi…“No one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”

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That is one of the best descriptions of jazz I e ever read and it makes perfect sense… thank you so much for posting that! Love it and had never read that before…

That conversation you quoted is essentially why it’s so beautiful.

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