Today is Perihelion which is the day in the year when the sun is closest to the Earth. If that blew your mind, here is a ‘simpler’ explanation.
To celebrate this, I thought I’d try something a bit different – Pink Floyd’s "Dark Side of the Moon" initially took my fancy, but then I figured it had to be about the sun, not the moon … and so arrived at Sun Ra. I first heard about Sun Ra in a Blur interview where either Graham Coxon or Damon Albarn cited him as a major influence. For this reason, I was extremely tempted to go with the 1975 album “Space Is the Place”, the refrain at the end of “Bugman” from Blur’s 1999 album “13”. But, again, not the sun.
So I plumped for, without any previous knowledge, the 1965 album “The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra Volume 1”.
Initially, I made the mistake of starting to listen to this album whilst getting for ready for work (admittedly on the first week back after holidays). Not a morning album at all! It made me gloomier about the impending doom than ever. The first track attacks us with the signature clash of strident brass instruments and clanging, dissonant percussion. I had to put on some pop music.
I felt much more open and sympathetic to the crazy percussion and swooping, squeaking wood instruments once the night had taken over … which, in its own way, is a bit weird given that this day is about the sun … or, in the current state of the weather, the lack of the sun.
And it is a weird album. I have no idea what the jazz buying public would have made of it when it first came out; it doesn’t feel like an album you can take straight – it’s almost as if another state of consciousness (tiredness, drug-induced, existing on another plane) needs to be in place before the album starts to approximate making sense. According to one biography I read, Sun Ra mixed Ancient Egyptian culture with Science fiction – that’s a megalithic leap of time and space.
The beats are primal; and it is certainly free. If this music was dance, it would be flying, swinging, leaping and crawling all over the stage.
I like the album best when the piano’s involved, for instance on “Nebulae” and “Other Worlds” – for me, it softens and sets the scene for the crazy meltdown that happens toward the middle and end of the track. I guess the sun, in outer space, is a constantly shifting, seething mass of energy which can both destroy us and give life to us – such a paradox shouldn’t be about sweet melodies and twee lyrics.
“The Cosmos” is perhaps the most traditional jazz track on the record, if such a thing exists. Parts of it could almost work on a John Coltrane album … but the track is one of the longest and various lead instruments pay us attention: saxophone, keyboard, viola, drums. Particularly, the keyboard section feels like a movie soundtrack where the main character is floating free in space.
“Of Heavenly Things” is softer and quieter (except for one or two loud explosions) and seems to be more about making different noises, different music by plucking or striking. It almost has a contemplative air to it – you could imagine watching clouds going by with this playing in the background.
“Dancing in the Sun” is aptly titled – it’s upbeat, exuberant and the percussion and piano get your feet tapping. There’s a great drum solo right at the end and the high hat is struck – and then it’s over. Much sooner than I expected.
It’s not the easiest album to get into, and I can’t imagine listening to it very regularly – it’s a ‘mood’ album. But the album gave me the most pleasure by letting my imagination soar: on each track I was imagining another world, or space travel, or the sun fizzing and bubbling and firing gaseous matter. And that’s what is genius about it – the space the album grants to you to inhabit as your own.
*As there are no lyrics on this album, the title of the post comes from a stanza in William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”. He was pretty revolutionary too.
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