Sun Ra And His Solararkestra • Other Planes Of There (Saturn, 1965, 1966, or 1967)

Is that the past I am viewing from the spaceships porthole? The inhabitants of the planet we have landed on are upright crab-men. Clothed in Neanderthal loin cloths, they are armed with laser shooting spears...you'll forgive me, I was looking through some old photos I had taken...wonderful times the 1990's...

There are places in the galaxy where the primitive and modern rest side by side. How often have I heard the drunken party guest mutter "Ape with a microwave", only to be reassured by the host that it was just a general observation. I shouldn't take it personally...

Sun Ra understood these contradictions. Listening to the title track of Other Planes of There ones ear has to quickly reassemble it's inner calendar. While the album as a whole is a study in contrast, it's the opening that embodies the concept.

Opening with a blast of dark chords , not unlike modern 20Th century classical, quickly it shifts to lopsided jazz consisting of sharp piano chords and reeds. Meandering in this mode for a while we are gradually taken to some sort of ancient Melody. Oboe painting a picture of the Serengeti. Not content to stay too long there, Ra's piano starts rumbling low end notes bringing us back to modern times. Content to shift from focus to focus, like most Ra compositions it ends when he's run out of notes.

Side two uses the same floor plan, only breaking the focus up into separate pieces. Quietly skittering in on sparse snare drums, tapping out a rhythm that seems more like a lead line, Sound Spectra/Spec Sket is then married to hunting call horns bathed in reverb. From there the maelstrom of side one resumes.

Next comes the tack Sketch. Duping the listener with what would seem like a normal swing style played by the piano, it's John Gilmore's sax that ups the oddball factor. What is the more Fortian moment here? The presentation of swing as a primitive movement, or Gilmore solo that sounds like he's playing along to a radio broadcast heard through the wall of the next room? The sonic slight of hand is the reverb. Used a cloaking device, it starts to muddy the sax to the point where the treatment becomes an instrument in it's self. Then jarringly shut off, the sax appears almost out of nowhere.

Sandwiched between the Sketch and the mammoth album closer Spiral Galaxy, is the aptly titled Pleasure. Languidly drifting in a sea of bowed bass and light piano, we are given another example of a sax solo that plays around the tune rather than join in.

By albums end, Spiral Galaxy show us that the tempo of the Heavens can be marked in 3/4 time. An ancient sounding military precision is kept here, framing a fussy sounding woodwind section - not unlike a tornado visible on the horizon. Jabs of shrill oboe crackling over piano.

Reverb is heavily placed on the woodwind segments, only to be quickly withdrawn for the other instruments to come through. All the while the 3/4 is being kept, but with small additional beats, shifting the focus. Just as it seems that it's winding down, some new squall of sound arises and your off again. Eventually it does end, but not in grotesque crescendo but with the tapping of some percussion. You've arrived safely back to the present time. Ra and Arkestra have taken you through various time shifts, and you barely moved an inch.

Like most Sun Ra recordings, it's a little hard to pin down the where and whens. While this session was recorded in 1964/65, it may not have seen print until 1966, or 1967. By then Ra had moved the Arkestra further in to space, employing the Moog as his main instrument. So a piano based record seems even further antiquated.

Please click on the review title for selected track: Sound Spectra / Spec Sket